Mega Marine Structures, Inc. manufactures an innovative fiber- reinforced-polymer honeycomb (FRPH) having promising structural applications. Once it can be qualified, this high-strength, light-weight, non-corrosive, tough, resilient, and highly producible FRPH-an industrial-grade macro-honeycomb--could achieve significant cost, labor, and weight reductions in ocean structures. Compared to FRP ocean structures, FRPH structural systems have a much higher strength-to-weight ratio, the prospect for greatly reduced construction costs, and the capability of being thoroughly instrumented for the purpose of non-destructive evaluation (NDE). This research effort will construct test panels of FRPH, instrumented with strain gauges and acoustic sensors, and conduct NDE acoustic emission (AE) and physical load testing. During testing, failures will be induced to determine the utility of AE for studying FRPH failure modes, failure sequence, failure monitoring, and incipient failure onset. These are key ingredients toward making FRPH an accepted engineering material within a short period of time.
