1.

Introduction
This project will investigate the manufacturing process of a midship`s deck block. The
chosen ship drawing, named Lilac, is an Oil Tanker built by Mitsubishi Corporation.

2. Interpretation of the Block Drawing

In the midship section, the deck block of the center tank has a width equal to 9.9m and
a length of 13.2m.

Figure 1 - Front View of the Deck Block

As shown in Figure 1, the block is almost symmetric relatively to the center line. The
distinctions are the widths of the top plates and the geometry of the stiffener slot in the center
line. The slots in the deck are of “F. Bar” type, as detailed in Figure 2.

Figure 2 - Details of slot

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 The straight camber has a 2.5o angle, according to the dimensions shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 - Camber and Longitudinals

Figure 4 - Upper Deck Longitudinals

Figure 3 and Figure 4 specify the deck longitudinals, which are of Flat Bar type. The
drawing also shows the distance between the frames. For simplification purposes, in this
project, the bulkhead was substituted by the frame. In addition, the longitudinals have 50mm
holes spaced.

Figure 5 - Details of the Hole

3. Modelling of the Structure

After the interpretation of the drawing, the structure was modelled in a 3D view, using
the software Rhinoceros – as shown in Figure 6 to Figure 9.

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 Figure 6 - Front View

Figure 7 - Top View (left) and Bottom View (right)

Figure 8 - Right View

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 Figure 9 - Perspective View

The web flanges are smaller than the frame, in view of joining it with the other blocks.
For the same reason, the longitudinals are not perfectly aligned with the top plates. In addition,
the extremities of the frames are not aligned with the extremities of the top plates.

For simplification, the welds are not shown in the model.

4. Materials
This section will present the quantity of steel, consumables used in cutting and welding,
and painting that will be necessary to manufacture the block.

4.1. Steel

The nesting approach will be used to evaluate how much steel will be necessary for the
block. In this method, the cutting patterns are arranged in steel plates with the objective to
optimize the material used and waste the least steel that is possible. Despite existing softwares
to perform the nesting, in this project, the “arrangement strategy” will be performed by the
author.

The block is constituted by 12 frame parts, 12 web flanges parts, 11 longitudinals, 12

tripping brackets, 48 flat bars, 8 small plates to cover the openings for the longitudinals, and 4
top plates. From the components listed above, only the longitudinals will not be in the nesting
calculations, since they are not made in the shipyard.

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 To calculate the quantity of steel that is necessary to produce the parts, the dimensions
of the biggest plate will be taken as the standard measure for the steel plates. Therefore, steel
plates with the following dimensions will be used: 2800 x 13200 x 17 mm. Although the
thickness of the parts varies in the real project, a standard thickness will be adopted in this
work. The arrangement of the parts for cutting is presented in Figure 10.

Figure 10 – Nesting
As shown in Figure 10, the parts are spaced from each other because of the precision
tolerance of the cutting equipment.

Visually it is possible to notice that the Plate 2 has considerable more wasting of steel
than the other plates. In view of calculating the percentage of waste, the areas of the parts and
standard plates were obtained in the software Rhinoceros and Table 1 was created.

Plate Parts Area [m2] Plate Area [m2] Waste [%]

1 29.24 36.96 21%
2 20.70 36.96 44%
3 36.83 36.96 0%
4 34.25 36.96 7%
5 29.87 36.96 19%
6 34.48 36.96 7%
Total 185.37 221.76 16%
Table 1 - Wasted Steel with Nesting

As shown in Table 1, 16% of steel would be wasted with this nesting arrangement.
However, the objective of Table 1 is more to illustrate the waste calculation than to show the

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result itself, as this number does not represent the real situation because of the standard
thickness simplification and the application of nesting only to one block. Please note that the
area shown above is only for nesting calculations; the one used for painting is the superficial
area because it considers both sides of the plates and the thickness.

Therefore, 6 steel plates with 2800 x 13200 x 17 mm and 11 FB longitudinals with

dimensions 280 x13200 x 19 mm will be necessary to manufacture the block.

4.2. Cutting

Nowadays, there are four cutting technologies commonly used in shipyards:

 Waterjet: It cuts the metal using a jet of water with an abrasive substance at high
velocity and pressure;

 Laser: It cuts the material with the guidance of CAD/CAM file. The cutting may occur
by many ways, such as melting, burning or vaporization of the material;

 Plasma: This process uses a conductive gas to transfer energy from an electrical
power source to the piece that is being cut through a plasma cutter torch;

 Oxy-gas: A local and continuous oxygen jet oxides the base material in the pre-
heated point of action, performing the cut.

A comparison between them is presented in Table 2.

Process Advantages Disadvantages Applications

No heat affected zone Non-Portable
Cutting of thicker
Waterjet No production of dust
Hight noise pollution metals
High Speed
No need of surface Possible security/health
finishing problems
Portability Deformation, hardening and Cutting flat steel sheet
Laser
structural changes may occur of medium thickness
Flexibility
High accuracy Expensive initial investment
Portability Deformation, hardening and
No pre-heating is required structural changes may occur Cutting of flat sheet and
Plasma
Possible interference with other plate of thicker metals
High cutting speeds
electronic equipment

Automatic cut on
Portability
shop/on board
Oxy-gas Environmental damage Manual cutting on
Flexibility board
Edges and chamfers

Table 2 – Comparison between cutting technologies

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 In this project, the Plasma method will be considered to calculate the consumables that
will be necessary for cutting.

The first step is to know the perimeter of the geometries that will be cut. So, from the
nesting file created in Rhinoceros, one verified that the total length that will be cut (including
the parts and the longitudinal holes) is L=485.47m.

Other needed information are the parameters of the process – presented in Figure 11.
As mentioned before, for study purposes, only plates with 17mm thick will be used.

Thickness [mm] Speed [cm/min] Gas [l/min]

6 500 125
25 125 150
17 283 139
Figure 11 - Plasma Parameters

Therefore, the Gas consumption is found by multiplying the cutting length by the
respective parameter. The cutting time may be roughly estimated through the division of the
length by the speed, however this calculation does not consider the time between cuts. The
results are shown in Table 3.

Gas 53 l
Cutting Time 23 h
Table 3 – Gas Consumption and Cutting Time

4.3. Welding

Welding is the process of applying heat to join metals after they are melt. The major
difference between the many available welding techniques is the way that the heat is generated
to melt the metallic parts. One of the most common type of welding used in shipyards is the
arc welding (AW). In this type of welding, there is the heat source, the filler metal and the
shielding. Then, the heat is produced by an electric arc between two contacts, making possible
to join the materials.

In this project, the submerged arc welding method will be considered in view of
calculating the welding consumable. Two types of weld joints, shown in Figure 12, will be used:
Butt and Fillet. The butt joint is used to weld plates with the same thickness - in this case for
the frames, web flanges and deck plates. The fillet weld will be used in perpendicular joints -
for example, to weld the longitudinals with the deck plates.

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 Figure 12 - Butt Joint (left) and Fillet Weld (right)

The area that will be filled with the welding consumable (steel) will be calculated
according to the DNV rules, both for butt and fillet joints. In the case of butt joints, it is calculated
as the sum of a rectangle (root gap x thickness of the plates) and two triangles with 30o. For
the fillet weld, the throat thickness will be calculated from the equation 4.3.1, with the
parameters shown in Table 4. So, the area of each fillet will be approximated by the isosceles
right triangle with hypotenuse equal to the throat thickness.

(4.3.1)
C t0 [mm] fpm fw tk [mm] t [mm]
0.16 17.00 1.00 1.36 1.50 2.75
Table 4 - Throat thickness

The result for the equation 4.3.1 was 2.75mm, which is less than the minimum
requirement of 3.5mm. Therefore, the throat thickness that will be used is 3.5 mm.

After calculating the area that will be filled with the filler metal, it is necessary to know
the length of welding. In the cases where the fillet welding will be applied, this length is
multiplied by two – as both sides will be welded. Then, the volume is calculated by multiplying
the area and the length. A summary of calculations is shown in Table 5.

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 Table 5 - Volume of Welding

Note that the “repeat” column was created in order to simplify the calculus, as many
parts are equal. So, after calculating the volume for a single part, it is necessary to multiply
that by the number in the repeat column to obtain the total volume for that kind of element.

Once the volume is known, this value is multiplied by the steel density – which is
7850kg/m3 – obtaining the weight of welding consumable. Therefore, for the deck module,
97.6kg of filler metal will be necessary. Please note that this value does not consider the steel
necessary for the reinforcement nor for the joint of blocks.

4.4. Painting

The painting has two mainly functions: protecting the steel surface from corrosion and
giving a good appearance to the part. Before applying the protective paint, it is necessary to
clean the surface and to apply the primer coating. It is important to ensure that the protective
paint will adhere the surface, creating an effective paint film.

The data sheet of Torpedo Marine Paints will be consulted to calculate the quantity of
Blast primer and Navy protective paint that will be necessary for this project. The results are
presented in Table 6.

Spreading rate
Area [m2] Quantity [l]
[m2/l]
Blast Primer 8.5 448 53
Navy Protective 8.6 448 53
Table 6 - Quantity of Paint

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5. Work`s Sequence
The first step is to cut all the parts, make the holes in the longitudinals and curve the
web flanges. Then, the four top plates are welded. The frame parts will also be welded,
resulting in four frames. The same is done with the web flanges – as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13 – Work´s Sequence (Initial Welds)

After the panels are mounted, it is time to add the structural elements to them. So, the
longitudinals are welded to the top plates and the flat bars and tripping brackets are welded in
the frames. These welds are done in flat position. Figure 14 illustrates this step.

Figure 14 - Work`s Sequence (Structural Elements)

In the sequence, the web flanges are welded to the frames as presented in Figure 15.

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 Figure 15 - Work`s Sequence (Web Flange Welds)

After that, the frames are welded to the top plates with the spacing of 3.3m – Figure 16.

Figure 16 - Work´s Sequence (Frames welded to the top plates)

Finally, the small plates are welded in some openings for the longitudinals as indicated
by the red arrow in Figure 17.

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 Figure 17 - Work´s Sequence (Small plates)

The sequence of work is summarized in Table 7.

Table 7 - Table of Activities

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6. Weight and Center of Gravity Position
The center of gravity position, obtained by the software Rhinoceros, is:

X = 0.0m, Y = 6.63m, Z = -0.16m; where:

X is the transverse, with origin at the center;

Y is the longitudinal, with origin at the first longitudinal corner;

Z is the vertical coordinate, with origin at the highest point of the top plate.

The location of the coordinates is illustrated in Figure 18.

Figure 18 - Coordinate System

The weight of the structure will be calculated by the volume obtained in the Rhinoceros
times the density of steel. The weight of the welding will be also considered. On the other hand,
the weight of the paint is uncertain, since the data sheet only shows the quantity in liters. To
cover the uncertainties, a safety factor of 1.2 will be used. The weight is shown in Table 8.

Weight of the structure

Steel 27.1 t
Weld 0.1 t
Safety Factor 1.1
Total 29.9 t
Table 8 - Weight of the structure

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7. Lifting System
The lifting system is fundamental to place the block at the right position in the dock. For
such an operation, four padeyes will be welded to the block – according to Figure 19.

Figure 19 – Block Padeyes Position

Each one of the padeyes may carry 30t, meaning that the lifting system has a safety
factor of 4. They are welded at the ends of the two extreme longitudinals, as seen in Figure
19. Their dimensions are shown in Figure 20, their thickness is 34mm.

Figure 20 – Block Padeye Dimensions

In the case of this project´s block, padeyes will also be used to suspend the frames and
place them at the top panel. As each frame weights 3.77t, they will have two padeyes, with
thickness equal to 18mm, that supports 5t each. The location of the lifting point is shown in
Figure 21 and their dimensions in Figure 22.

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Figure 21 - Frame Padeyes Location

Figure 22 - Frame Padeye Dimensions

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8. Quality Control
To secure that the shipyard meets a consistent level of quality, the following measures
may be taken:

 The proper calibration of the tools that are used in tests or inspections;

 Verification of the quality of the material supplied to the shipyard;

 Inspection of welding, painting and other processes;

 Periodical labor training and evaluation of workers` performance;

 Periodical internal audits, performed by a selected team within some departments,

to determine possible ways to improve the work - for example, regarding schedules and
personnel.

Concerning the assurance of welding quality, either destructive and non-destructive

tests may be done. Some types of non-destructive tests are explained below:

 Visual inspection: it is a subjective type of inspection that is frequently done

automatically by the welder after he completes the welds;

 Magnetic particle inspection: the part is magnetized while a liquid with fine ground
iron powder is applied. If there is a defect – for example a crack – the magnetic field is
interrupted and the particles of metal cluster around the defect;

 Liquid penetrant inspection: the weld is cleaned and a penetrant liquid is applied.
Then, the excess of penetrant liquid is removed and a developer is applied. If there are
imperfections, the colored liquid will remain seen in the cracks;

Other non-destructive tests used in shipyards are the ultrasonic and the radiographic.

There are also techniques to control the distortions caused by the expansion and
contraction during the welding. Some of the possible measures are: minimizing the welding
heat input, maximizing the restraint, making modifications in the design, and limiting the
number of weld passes.

Other important actions concern the dimensional control after cutting the parts and
during the assemblage. The distances and angles between the parts should be verified to
ensure that they are aligned within the tolerance set. Temporary welding and some apparatus
may be used to keep the parts in the correct position.

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9. Conclusion
The objective of this project was to investigate the manufacturing process of a
midship`s deck block, using the drawing of the ship Lilac.

The first conclusion is that the 3D model in a software facilitates immensely the
understanding of the block construction. In addition, it is possible to use the software to find
out the superficial area, volume and center of gravity – which is faster than if they would be
calculated by hand. The center of gravity calculation is primordial to define the lifting points
and avoiding undesirable situations when the crane lifts the block to the dock.

Another outcome is that the nesting is a useful tool to evaluate how much steel is
necessary to manufacture the block, in a way that it is optimized - wasting less steel. This
project was also interesting to understand how the necessary quantity of the other materials -
such as painting, welding and cutting consumables - may be calculated.

The sequence of the work starts by cutting all the parts, assembling the panels, adding
structural elements to the panels and joining the different panels. If applicable, after that the
last welds are done to the block - for example to cover the frame holes done for the
longitudinals.

Finally, the quality control topic outlines which measures may be taken to ensure that
the shipyard meets a high level of service and the ship will be in accordance with the
regulations of classification societies.

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