1. Shaped Plate Verification
March 12-14, 2019
Charleston, SC
DCN#
This material is based upon work supported by the Center of Naval Metalworking under Contract No
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

2. Agenda Problem/Issue Project Goals/Objectives Project Team
Current Practice for Line Heating
Project Schedule at a Glance
Process Flow
Requirements Development
Accomplishments
Path Forward
Q&A

3. Problem/Issue
Verifying plate geometries is a manual process requiring highly skilled labor to effectively execute.
There are currently no readily available COTS solutions to:
Automate or semi-automate plate shaping and verifying plate geometry.
Automate or semi-automate the alignment and verification process for setting shell plates and maintaining the required geometry while stiffeners are attached.
Large heavy plates with complex 2-D and 3-D shapes that require tooling, and/or fixtures and processes to quickly and accurately locate and monitor these plates.

4. Project Goals/Objectives
Reduce the manual labor in shaping shell plates.
Provide a robust method enabling rapid positioning and alignment of shell plates on fixtures.
Provide the capability for in-process verification of each shaped plate in both the Fabrication Shop and Shell Shop.
Supporting Information
This will be enabled through the development of an automated or semi- automated system and processes to form shell plates in the Fabrication Shop and verify the geometry of the as-built plates as compared to design data.
In addition, tooling and/or fixtures will be developed to set, align and fabricate shell plates and shell plate assemblies in the Shell Shop.
These fixtures will have the ability to check and monitor the as-built shape geometry and quickly and accurately determine any out of tolerance conditions.

5. Project Team

6. Current Shipyard Practice
Modern Shipbuilding employs traditional forming technologies (e.g. press bending and line heating) that are labor intensive and heavily dependent on the experience of only several
craft workers.
There is no model-based guidance given on how to accurately achieve the final design shape in a timely fashion.
Current state:
Plate shaping with flame heating

7. Shaped Plate in Shipbuilding

8. Project Schedule at a Glance
Phase I
Process Baseline Oct 2018 – April 2019
Concept Development Oct 2018 – Oct 2019
Go-No Go Decision Oct 2019
Phase II
Prototype Development Oct 2019 – Aug 2020
Automated Line Heating/ Aug 2020 – Sep 2020
Plate Shaping Pilot
Final Report Nov 2020

9. Phase I – Shaped Plate Process Flow
Engineering Design
Planning Develops Plan
Material Is Delivered
Fabrication
Shape Validation
Joining
Engineering ensures geometry and develops drawing necessary for fabrication
Planning ensures all materials are identified and plans the work accordingly
Production Control obtains and delivers required materials
Craft fabricates shape per design and direction
Accuracy Control verifies as built matches as designed
This craft is an art……
Shapes are joined to larger structures

10. Phase I – Requirements Development
Currently In Process
Preliminary Data Mining
Additional Development Required

11. Accomplishments Activities Deliverables
Current Process Maps 1/18/2019 Complete
Deliverables
Kickoff Meeting/Report 11/25/2018 Complete
Quarterly Status Report #1 1/15/2019 Complete
Baseline Process Report 3/4/2019 Complete

12. Accomplishments – Hardware Market Survey
The First Automatic Thermal Forming System (IHI-α)
In 1997, IHI developed the first automatic thermal forming system with induction heating.
“IHI-α” was applied to the forming of curved shell plates on Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC), and container ships.
Tango, Ishiyama, and Suzuki, IHI Engineering Review, 2011

13. Iterative Thermal Plate Forming (Software)
Accomplishments – Software Market Survey
Iterative Thermal Plate Forming (Software)
Automatic thermal forming system formed a plate iteratively, which is similar to the manual practice in current Ingalls shipyard.
Similarity change with respect to the iteration number
Iterative forming process
Park et al. International journal of computed integrated manufacturing, 2016

14. Automated Forming Path Forward Next Steps Current Activities
Concept Development
Prototype Development
Automated Line Heating/Plate Shaping Pilot
Shaped Plate Verification
Current Activities
Plate Shaping Requirements
Market Survey
Deliverables
Requirements Report 3/25/2019
Quarterly Status Report #2 4/15/2019
Market Survey Report 6/20/2019

15. Questions??