Joining processes are an important key factor for the competitiveness of European shipbuilders. They not only represent a significant portion of the total man hour consumption in hull production and outfitting, but due to heat distortions they also have a significant impact on nonproductive work operations, such as straightening and fitting. Those operations can interfere with on-board outfitting and increase lead time and construction cost. In addition to their contribution to shipyard productivity, joining techniques have a significant impact on material properties and thus on product performance and quality. Those factors become increasingly important for complex structures using comparatively thin and high-strength materials. Considering the importance of efficient joining, European shipbuilders in the past decade have invested significant efforts to develop new joining techniques, such as laser welding, adhesive bonding, and mechanical joining. Based on research results, practical industrial applications have been developed recently. After reviewing the impact of joining processes on competitiveness, the article will summarize a number of past and ongoing research projects with special focus on design methods, process and equipment development, fatigue strength of joints, quality assurance, and approval. It will then present a number of recent applications of new joining techniques in European shipyards. Finally, open problems and future research needs will be briefly discussed. The article is based on a joint effort of leading European experts and will focus on laser and laser hybrid welding, adhesive bonding, and mechanical joining
The paper describes the layout of an innovative automated steel workshop for the manufacturing of ship blocks, recently set up at Fincantieri's Monfalcone Shipyard. The system implements the results of a European EUREKA! research program called FASP -Flexible Automation in Ship Prefabrication. The various working areas of the shop are described; for each of the new technologies being applied, the level of automation and integration with the other areas is discussed; the advantages obtained are compared with the best typical standards of a traditional production workshop. Inside a fully automated workshop, the information support must have a high integration and flexibility level. The two main issues relevant to information technology are described, i.e., :the modular and integrated systems for the design, part program generation and transmission; andthe production programming, management and control system.
For the industrial adoption of laser welding technology, it is important that the yards achieve full control of the process and that they and the classification societies reach a level of confidence in the technology to permit a reduced level of quality controls after the welds have been performed. This would lead to a practicable and easier implementation of the technology in the industrial field. This is the approach that two EU yards, Odense Steel Shipyard and Fincantieri, had in mind while developing, with the partnership of important EU research institutes and classification societies, the EU-supported research project Shipbuilding Laser Welds: An Integrated System for Assurance and Control of Quality (SHILWACQ). The author, who was the coordinator of the project, explains, from the point of view of an end user shipyard, how this approach was implemented following two main research lines:the quality assurance line, focusing on the "defect avoidance" criterion and the "defect acceptance" (fitness for purpose) criterion;the quality control line, concentrating on the on-line process monitoring and automated not-destructive-test inspection systems. The CO2 laser welding technology for small/medium-thickness steel hull components is addressed. The article explains the activity development and the scientific results achieved by the two research lines, as well as how these results have been tested and validated in the industrial environment.
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