Boat owners usually want an interior arrangement and finish to be proud of. And unless they are keen on 'industrial' styling, the structures, piping, ventilation and other systems will be skilfully disguised by an interior designer. These components are therefore often required to share the same limited space, which can prove a real challenge for all parties involved.The result of this conflict is often a hole through a girder where none was intended. Much information has been published on penetrations, but as shear webs in yachts are generally highly orthotropic in nature, the conventional stress concentration models are less relevant in these applications.So how much of an impact does a hole really have on the strength of a hull or deck stiffener designed and built from a highly orthotropic laminate?
The High Modulus R&D team set out to determine this impact by testing penetrations of varying sizes and shapes. To do this, they developed their own in-plane shear test method that mimics the real-world loading scenario, and then compared the results with Finite Element Analysis.
Click here to download High Modulus Technical Note: 3 | 
