Patent ID: 8182643

Claim:
A process for fabricating a large, multi-level composite shipboard structure, comprising: pultruding a continuous panel in a process direction in a pultrusion die assembly, the continuous panel having opposed longitudinal edges extending in the process direction, each longitudinal edge having an edge profile extending continuously in the process direction, one edge profile comprising a tapered male portion, an opposite edge profile comprising a complementary tapered female portion, the continuous panel having a width transverse to the process direction; after the panel exits the pultrusion die assembly, cutting the continuous panel across the process direction into panel sections of desired lengths, the panel sections including at least a first panel section and a second panel section each having a length of at least twenty feet in the process direction; and assembling the panel sections into a shipboard structure attached to a deck of a ship, comprising: attaching a frame to a surface of the deck along at least a portion of an outline of the perimeter of the structure, the frame including at least a first horizontally extending straight line segment having a length of at least twenty feet; attaching the first panel section to the frame at the first horizontally extending straight line segment, with the process direction extending horizontally and the width extending in an upward direction from the deck of the ship, attaching the second panel section to the first panel section to lie in the same plane, with an in-plane joint assembly along adjacent longitudinal edges of the first and second panel sections, and attaching at least a third panel section to the first and second panel sections at the in-plane joint assembly with an out-of-plane joint assembly, with the third panel section lying in a different plane to form a horizontal deck separating the structure into multiple levels, wherein a first level is formed between the deck of the ship and the horizontal deck, the first level coextensive with the width of the first panel section.