NEW COMPOSITE MATERIALS MADE PRODUCTS DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION FEATURES

https://doi.org/10.33815/2313-4763.2025.1.30.118-131

Abstract

The article deals with the techno-economic feasibility of using products made from new composite materials. The proposed cost structure of composite products includes the cost of materials, fillers, reinforcement, processing with stationary or variable physical fields, and mechanical processing by cutting, pressure, or other methods. The costs of performing each operation to manufacture a composite product are proposed to be calculated using a comprehensive approach. These include workers’ wages, electricity expenses, equipment depreciation, costs of operating cutting tools and equipment, machine programming, and other shop costs—in particular, payment for the operation of production areas, ventilation, heating, etc. Ratios are introduced that can be used in practice to determine the specified components of the cost of a composite product. For illustration, calculations and comparisons of the manufacture of deadwood-bearing bushings from graphite-filled caprolon, caprolon filled with graphite and molybdenum disulfide, as well as from an epoxy composite filled with graphite and polyamide, are presented. The expressions for calculating the labor intensity and cost of manufacturing bushings from these materials, depending on their sizes and the relationships between them, were obtained. The calculation results showed that the cost of bushings made from all three analyzed materials are comparable in magnitude—values of the same order—making the manufacturing costs for all options equivalent under unit production conditions at a ship repair enterprise. By determining wear, it is shown that in the case of using bushings from caprolon filled with graphite and molybdenum disulfide, the number of repairs with docking of the vessel during its service life will be almost six times less than when using bushings made from epoxy composite (9 and 23 dockings over 25 years, respectively). The set of results obtained is key for choosing a material, as the greater wear resistance of the bushings reduces the number of vessel downtimes in the dock and the cost of transporting a ton of cargo. The presented calculation method can be used by engineers when justifying the choice of material and is helpful for graduate students to compare the results obtained with studies by other authors. This could be one step toward adhering to the principles of open science and reducing the amount of research conducted merely for the sake of research.