From stem to stern

Mike Richardson meets Rob Wilder, marine exhaust system specialist and Halyard’s new sales director to hear more about the company’s plans to extend its end to end composites manufacturing expertise beyond the marine industry. From lifeboats and commercial workboats, to small sailing yachts and superyachts, most mariners recognise the engineering benefits of using a range of composite materials. Halyard designs, manufactures and installs dry and wet exhaust systems, silencers and filtration systems to help create a quieter and smoother onboard experience by reducing noise and vibration, as well as meeting regulations to reduce smoke and other potentially toxic engine emissions.
Based at Portsmouth, the team at Halyard’s composites facility has been working with composite materials for over 20 years to manufacture complex shaped and intricate systems. The company uses a range of composite manufacturing techniques suitable for the components’ performance requirements, ranging from filament winding GRP tube, carbon fibre prepreg, wet layup in traditional chopped strand mat/polyester resin to E-Glass in epoxy resin. Material selection and control is critical in the design of high quality exhaust systems and the correct resin and fibre selection are vital in producing a consistent component. The company also runs a fabrication and metalworking factory near Poole and a rubber hose factory based in Horndean.
Halyard recently appointed sales director, Rob Wilder to develop the company’s UK and international sales strategy, distributor networks and strategic partnerships.
“The team at Halyard comprises design and engineering specialists that create, project-manage and support the delivery of often complex, bespoke systems to make engines quieter, improve working conditions for crew and reduce the environmental impact of exhaust emissions,” Wilder begins. “It’s Halyard’s composites manufacturing business that really interests me because it employs a range of prepreg, filament wind, wet layup and resin infusion manufacturing techniques. Our composites engineering team has worked in the industry for many years and possesses a wealth of experience and skills.”
Our filament winding process is certainly an area that we want to grow and at present involves polyester materials with some epoxy too. We’re starting to grow our epoxy material development for other areas beyond traditional exhausts, such as marine stern tubes.”

Watch this space

Whilst the efficient management of engine noise, smoke, vibration and overboard discharges have become increasingly important in terms of the impact the marine industry is having on the environment, it’s below deck where another demand can be found: that of increasing integration within an ever-decreasing footprint.
“One of our main challenges is that as the size of the yacht grows, and more equipment is integrated within it, the space below deck decreases. Whilst our customers still want their boat engines to be really powerful, so they can travel really fast, they also want them to be really quiet too. This means we’re given less and less space to work within when specifying and exhaust system.

“Although our part profiles are basically tubular in construction, they involve many complex geometries and diameters. Traditionally the silencers are round, whereas we’ll often be required to look at manufacturing oval shapes too. We’ll look at the footprint of where a silencer system is being situated and then change and adapt the shape or diameter of the tubing in order for it to fit properly.”
As a business, there are certain environmental regulations that Halyard must satisfy, depending on the size of the yacht and where in the world it will be sailing. However, Wilder reckons that the technical challenge of managing engine emissions doesn’t really have any impact on the composite materials side.
“We’re seeing an increasing demand for visual grade carbon fibre weave being used more extensively as an outer surface layer. Superyacht owners like to see more carbon fibre weave in their engine rooms as they want it to look really eye-catching down below deck. The carbon fibre weave doesn’t really have any structural integrity whatsoever; it’s purely for aesthetics.

“We’ve been working with a couple of prepreg specialists to get our marine parts looking just right. Traditionally, exhaust systems require heat jackets to prevent people from getting burnt, whereas now we’re seeing increasingly more systems with insulation beneath them and carry the attractive carbon fibre ply on the outside. It doesn’t need to be automotive visual grade carbon fibre quality, but it does need to have good visual quality.”

From turbo to transom

Halyard operates in a very competitive sea lane, so how does it stand out from the crowd? Wilder believes that while many of its competitors subcontract out their manufacturing element, what makes Halyard unique is that its designs, engineers and manufactures the complete exhaust system package from end to end.
“Our biggest competitors either design and engineer, or just manufacture whereas we do everything. A competitor may cover the fabrication and metalwork side for example and then subcontract the hose, pipe or composite work. We offer the complete package ‘from turbo to transom’ in terms of what we can supply the customer.

“Each of our factories contain experts. For example, in our rubber hose factory we have employees that have been in this industry for a very long time and are really good at what they do. We’re not a huge company; we employ 50-60 people, but it is a privately-owned UK business. Our owners are very committed to all three manufacturing sites.”

Wilder concludes by saying that this year, the company will continue making waves in the marine sector. The forecast is good and there are still a lot of large yachts being built that require different exhaust systems.
“It’s interesting that some of the yacht manufacturers will offer a 70ft boat, but will specify four engine variants on it, such as a Caterpillar, or a Cummins or a Volvo engine for example. However, each engine has its own unique set of operating parameters with exhaust systems that have different back pressures, so we’ll always be required to fine-tune the exhaust system for different engines.

“However, we’re now looking at manufacturing composite parts for other sectors. The fact we use all these different composite production technologies is really exciting; we’re not blinkered into just using one particular manufacturing method. Ultimately, we want to broaden our composite component manufacturing knowledge and investigate the potential for manufacturing opportunities in other sectors.”
www.halyard.eu.com