Process of design an eco-friendly catamaran to extract aquatic plants

Abstract

This paper presents the design of an eco-friendly catamaran that follows two design methodologies, one focusing in the importance in the needs of future users and the other the spiral boat design methodology. The prototype is going to take advantage of the unique form of a catamaran and use the space available between the points of flotation for the process of extracting small plants and light plastics from the surface of recreational lakes. With the prototype the esthetics and also the aquatic ecosystem of the lake would be better preserved. The application of the prototype, could improve the time required to recollect the duckweed and only required one operator; however, the potential of this project is significantly bigger as it could be used as a method to extract superficial contaminants in garbage patches in the ocean and lakes without harming the species still in the zone of operation. Good practices of engineering are going to be use for the design of the catamaran, as well as for the selection of the necessary components.