Haydale announced its intention to enter a collaborative agreement with Alex Thomson Racing the HUGO BOSS sponsored extreme sailing team. Haydale, through its newly acquired subsidiary EPL Composite Solutions Limited, will work with ATR to incorporate graphene enhanced materials in their Research and Development program to improve overall strength and stiffness of a number of key structures within the ATR boat. Through incorporating new graphene enhanced materials in their future boat designs - ATR are seeking to keep their vessel light to ensure optimum speed without compromising on strength.
The initial work will include an immediate review to ascertain weight saving opportunities. In particular the parties are keen to make use of the recent work done by Haydale in adding their functionalised HDPlas® Graphene Nano Platelets (GNPs) into both Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic ("CFRP") and epoxy resins.
Outside of the obvious opportunity to improve overall strength and stiffness the teams plan a review of bearings and friction points plus critical areas such as delamination of materials and thermal heat management. Under the terms of this agreement Haydale will seek project funding for longer term assignments such as the inclusion of Haydale graphenes into barrier films and coatings and to investigate how these coatings could improve the ATR boat performance.