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Tenghaoye Wang

Integrated Industrial Design MSc

I am very interested in marine life, machinery, processing, and have strong hands-on skills, familiar with remote control circuits. I have manufactured many large ship models before. I prefer 3D modeling, My ideas will be presented in 3D mode first.

Ecological Keel – A clean free keel that can protect gooseneck barnacles

“A keel designed for sailboats of 20 meters and below which can both solve the problem of barnacles attaching to ship hulls and help expand their population.”
The keel is 3 meters long and has a draft of 2 meters. This is an example of being installed on a 12 meter long sailboat.
The usage scenario of the Ecological keel on a sailboat.

The principle of automatic disposal and replacement

Automatic disposal is the use of special biodegradable material PCL as a fastener to fix the ECOncrete shell. This material will completely degrade into water and carbon dioxide in seawater after 28 days, which is exactly the frequency for small sailboats to clean their hulls: 4-12 weeks.

Automatic replacement uses water flow to drive a turbofan, which in turn rotates the inner core that stores the new shell. When the groove of the inner core storage shell coincides with the opening of the external missing shell, the new shell will be automatically installed in place.

In order to minimize the corrosion from seawater, all metal and standard components of the keel are made of marine grade 316 stainless steel, The replaceable shell is made of ECOncrete, which can avoid changing the pH value of seawater and attract marine organisms to attach to it.
The principle of automatic replacement of the shell by the keel is similar to that of a magazine. When the shell installed on the outer side falls off, the shell stored in the inner core will be automatically replaced in place.
The bearings of the main shaft are ceramic bearings, which can completely resist the corrosion from seawater, The turbofan, main shaft, and propeller cover are made of titanium.
After the shell is detached, seawater will flow into the keel through the reserved waterway, and then flow through the turbofan to drive its rotation, which in turn drives the inner core to rotate, and finally flows out through the drainage outlet of the tail shell.
4 new replaceable shells are stored in the grooves of the rotatable core. A complete replacement requires 3 shells, and the extra piece is the spare shell.
The buckle that fixes the ECOncrete shell and keel is made of biodegradable PCL material, which will completely decompose in seawater after about 28 days, causing the shell to automatically fall off.
After the ECOncrete shell with barnacles attached is discarded, it can exist on the seabed for 50-100 years, and barnacles can continue to reproduce on it.
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