Plate and Section Preparation and Machining

Plate and Section Preparation

Initial preparation of material is essential for its efficiency in the completed ship structure and its marshalling on arrival is essential to the efficiency of the shipbuilding process. 1. STOCKYARD On arrival at the shipyard, plates and sections are temporarily stored in the stockyard. As a rule the stockyard is an uncovered space having sufficient area to provide storage for enough plates and sections required for the working of the yard some months ahead. 2. MANGLES is the name given to a heavy set of plate straightening rolls through which the plate is passed prior to its being worked. 3. SHOT BLASTING Plates and sections are in most cases now shot blasted to remove rust and mill scale. 4. PRIMING PAINT Following the shot blasting of plates and sections, the material passes immediately through an airless spray painting plant. In one pass the material is automatically sprayed with a priming paint of controlled coat thickness.

Plate and Section Machining

A number of the methods in use for forming plates into the required shapes 1. PLATE PROFILERS Where a plate is to be cut into one or more, or a series of complicated shapes, a profiling machine is employed. The following methods of control are found in shipyards: (a) 1/1 template or drawing control (b) 1/10 drawing (c) Numerical control. (Most commonly used now) 2. PLANING MACHINES Profiling machines are essentially for use where a plate requires extensive shaping with intricate cuts being made. Many of the plates in the ships hull, particularly those in straightforward plate panels, decks, tank tops, bulkheads, and side shell, will only require trimming and edge preparation, and perhaps some shallow curves may need to be cut in shell plates. This work may be carried out on a planing machine. PRESSES Hydraulic presses may be extensively used in the shipyard for a variety of purposes. They are capable of bending, straightening, flanging, dishing, and swaging plates. All of the work is done with the plate cold, and it is possible to carry out most of the work undertaken by a set of rolls. This is done at less capital cost, but the press is slower when used for bending and requires greater skill. In the case of press-forming it is difficult to predict how overbent the plate should be to obtain the correct shape after spring-back,and further peening and narrow roller forming make the plate slightly thinner in the worked areas.

PLATE ROLLS Heavy duty bending rolls used for rolling shell plates, etc., to the correct curvature are hydraulically operated. Two lower rolls are provided and are made to revolve in the same direction so that the plate is fed between them and a slightly larger diameter top roll which runs idly (see Figure 13.3). Either or both ends of the top roll may be adjusted for height, and the two lower rolls have adjustable centers. This may be done to obtain arge mast and derrick post sections for example, or bow thruster tunnel.

HEAT LINE BENDING The heat-line bending procedure is a widely sed technique to
obtain curvature in steel plates for shipbuilding purposes. Heat is applied in a line to the surface of a plate by a flame torch, and hen immediate cooling is obtained by air or water. The narrow heated line f material is prevented from expanding in the direction of the plate surface by the large mass of cold plate, and therefore expands outwards perpendicular to the plate surface. On cooling contraction will take place in the direction of the plate surface, causing the plate to become concave on the side to which heat was applied It has an advantage in that the plate holds its form more accurately when stiffening and other members are added later in the fabrication process.

A disadvantage of using oxyacetylene torches is the difficult temperature control (i.e. mixture,clea rance and velocity),a nd material degradation at the surface by diffusion of either excess carbon or oxygen from the combustion product.

Types of Heat Sources The line heating process can be divided into a few categories according to the heat sources: Gas torch is far the cheapest to buy and maintain. It is somewhat difficult to control as regards repeatability in gas amount (unless flowmeters as describedare used) and as regards keeping a constant distance to the plate. High-frequency induction heating allows for control of the heat penetration,as it depends on the frequency of the induced electrical field. It is unsuitable for heating at the edges of a plate as overheating is almost inevitable. Further the equipment is rather heavy, so it cannot replace the gas torch in manual line heating. Laser beam is the most well defined heat source although it is very expensive. Laser is very well suited for automation.

Plate templates are commonly used when forming doubly curved(non-developable) plates. These are a number of cross-sectional templates spaced along the baseline of the plate. (The baseline is defined by the x axis of the plates UCS.) When cut out from plywood or similar material, the templates can be used to check the shape of the plate while it is being formed.