2.02 NEMO – Design 4 Yacht Flexible Customization

Sustainability through flexible customization
The growing demand for customization of limited series yachts’ living spaces made in limited series produces significant diseconomies and environmental impact factors related to the use of molds in manufacturing composite components. Indeed, these tools have low flexibility and are challenging to reuse, resulting in a high material and energy waste for manufacturing. These tools tend to exceed molded parts by weight and, therefore, when they cannot be amortized over enough elements, they
constitute one of the most relevant problems from an environmental point of view in terms of process LCA.
To overcome the gap, new design approaches are required to shape spaces and products that foster a greater circularity of the resources employed. In this perspective, freeing from the traditional technologies of form transfer using models and molds could mean adopting generative design models capable of exploiting additive production technologies for integrating customization at the design and production stage.

Eco-design strategies
Exploring new design and engineering approaches to implement flexible, waste-free forms of customization and production equipment is, therefore, the ground for experimenting with eco-design strategies, enabling the transition to a system of products and services with optimized product life-cycle management.
The research proposes to explore, asses and develop novel methodologies for a product-service-system design aiming at reducing or eliminating waste, as well as minimizing the use of energy for production and the operation in the natural environments. The adopted methodologies will represents a tool to approach concept design results based on a cradle-to-cradle design approach.
In this perspective, the possibility of shaping an object through additive manufacturing of a core material preludes to multiple potentialities and benefits, both from a technical and environmental point of view.
Firstly, it frees the design perspective from the typical limitations of the molded composite material processing technique (shape regularity, control of bending radius, checking draft, undercut angles etc.). Secondly, it offers the opportunity to modulate in a highly punctual manner not only the geometric features of the component but also its mechanical properties by defining, for example, reticular-type structures capable of varying the response in terms of shear resistance or interlaminar adhesion with reinforcing materials in a highly flexible and effective manner. Last, it could represent a zero-waste freeform custom manufacturing with no impact on the time and cost respect the standard production process.

New opportunities for composite innovation
A further planned benefit concerns the integration of reinforcement materials derived from additive manufacturing, making the overall process extraordinarily homogenous and rationalized.
In any case, variants involving, for example, the realization by 3D printing of continuous and suitably functionalized core material finishing cannot be excluded. Such solutions may make it possible to improve the coupling with the reinforcement fabrics according to the specific performance requirements of the component, as well as the possibility of resorting to vacuum or autoclave processing.
Finally, it’s planned to investigate the possibility of resorting to materials that, both thanks to the possibility of realizing mono-material composites and in the function of their composition, can significantly reduce environmental impact and the definite possibility of addressing the components at the end of their life to circular regeneration processes.