How do they make the individual panels on a ships hull to the correct shape so they can be welded together? It wouldn’t be practical to make a press tool for every panel for a design of ship that you might only build a handful of, and you can’t build a (good) ship entirely out of flat plate, so how do they do it?
In: Engineering
Imagine you have a big piece of paper and you want to make a boat shape out of it. You can’t just fold it into a boat shape because the paper is flat and the boat shape is curved.
So to fix this problem, they use special machines called rolling machines or plate bending machines that have big rollers. The paper (or steel plate) goes through these rollers, which squeeze and bend the plate into the right shape.
Another method is using heat. Just like how a plastic ruler gets soft and bendy when you hold it over a candle flame, steel also becomes more flexible when heated. So, they can heat up the steel plate in certain areas and then bend it into the desired shape. When it cools down, it maintains that shape. Sometimes, they use a combination of both heating and rolling methods to get the perfect shape for each piece of the ship’s hull, like making a big steel puzzle where each piece must be shaped precisely to fit together.
Here’s a good little rundown: https://www.thefabricator.com/thefabricator/article/shopmanagement/a-parting-of-the-inclined-ways
> Only the outer hull details are shaped to contour; inner hull details are designed to allow fabrication from flat plate. Power rolling shapes the outer hull components that require simple curvature, with contour checked against CAD-generated templates. Parts that need compound curvature are formed by selective heating. The latter method requires the skill and experience of craftsmen who now can refer to a CAD-generated graphic matrix, which predicts specific locations and amounts of heat to be applied.
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