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Content archived on 2024-06-10

Advanced Welding for Closed Structures

Objective



The research has the main strategic aim of contributing
to the recovery of the competitiveness of the European
shipbuilding industry, with regard to Far East Countries,
by the development of a new production technology, based
on stake welding, for the construction of closed steel
stnuctures. This methodology consists in the welding from
the outside of the reinforcements of closed structures to
the covering sheet. This technology has also the
potentiality to be beneficial to several other industries
involved in the production of metal works, like heavy
duty cranes, that are a second application field directly
covered by the project, trains and civil engineering
steel works.

The advantages offered by the realization of closed
structures by stake welding, according to the use of the
new proposed technology, include:

enhanced product quality in terms of lightness and
structural stiffness;

cost reduction, related both to manpower and materials:
a 6% reduction in shipbuilding has been estimated with
reference to the total hull fabrication costs; more than
one half of the mentioned reduction figure is related to
heavy structures ( with plate thickness between 8 and 25
mm), that are specifically addressed by the project.

improved social impact of the work, by
reduction/exclusion of human intervention inside the
structures, where a complex, diffficult and potentially
unsafe environment is present.

Currently a wide spread use of closed steel structures is
prevented by the technical limitations in performing
their welds. The technical objective of the research is
to overcome these limitations mainly by the development
of the stake welding technology for medium high thickness
plates and of an innovative Sensing System which, on line
with the laser welding, may detect with a high degree of
accuracy the intemal reinforcements through the thickness
of the closing plate to guide the laser beam along the
correct path.

Call for proposal

Data not available

Coordinator

Fincantieri - Cantieri Navali Italiani SpA
EU contribution
No data
Address
Passeggio S. Andrea 6
34123 Trieste
Italy

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Total cost
No data

Participants (8)