Metal Plate Forming Process for 3D Ship Hull Shapes

Tuesday, April 01 2008

The current method of producing three- dimensional shapes for Navy ship hulls and other structures consists of manual thermalforming by skilled labor that uses oxyacetylene torches and water hoses. The process is very costly, labor-intensive, inaccurate, and slow.

Native American Technologies (Golden, CO), with funding from the Office of Naval Research, has developed the Light Induced Thermal Shape Forming (LITS-Form) process to address this problem. The LITS-Form process uses advanced high-energy heat sources, automated manipulators to position the heat at precise locations, intelligent controls, and computerized off-line planning. The process is cost-effective, uses minimal labor, produces highly accurate parts, and is up to 100 times faster than manual plate forming.

How it Works

Ship hull plate-shaping is critical in NAVSEA’s DD21 program. Manual forming, roll forming, and break press forming is very slow and tedious work. A typical Navy destroyer requires many thousands of man-hours and up to 18 months or more to produce just the 3D ship hull plate shapes. Jigs and templates are produced from computer-aided design (CAD) lofts, then using oxyacetylene torches and water hoses, a 1" thick steel plate is coaxed into shape.

The LITS-Form process uses automated and robotic forming to reduce cost, improve speed, enhance accuracy, and enable better plate shape consistency and quality. The LITS-Form process forms the three-dimensional plate shapes of a destroyer in about one to two months, thus reducing the production process by 90 percent and labor cost by at least 50 percent.

Since the LITS-Form process is completely automated, adding the plasma-cutting option to the system eliminates two other inefficiencies: manual pre-cutting of the parts before forming and final manual trim cutting of components after forming. The LITS-Form process and automated cutting option improves the speed and accuracy of ship hull plate-shaping, and reduces cost for a host of other military and commercial endeavors.

Where it Stands

Applications for the LITS-Form process include ship hull production, jet engine repair, armor and artillery systems, remote minefield neutralization, spacecraft performance, component production, rapid prototyping for crash and safety testing, and storage and safety of spent fuel and transportation containers.

More Information

For more information on Native American Technologies’ LITS-Form process, click here. (Source: West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation)