A Study on the Concave Type Hull Plate Forming using Induction Heating System

摘要

In shipbuilding, accurate fabrication of curved hull plates is one of the most important steps, since the shape of ship hull, which is very critical in the overall performance of a ship, is a collection of such plates. The curved hull plates forming process requires a significant amount of time by skilled workers in shipbuilding. In general, the workers cause thermal distortion in the plate and forming initial shape using gas heat source. So shipbuilding companies need skilled workers who have long experience. To solve the problem, a lot of researchers tried to develop automation system for curved hull plates. In this paper, we propose automatic heating system with gantry robot, high frequency induction heater to replace the gas heat source and automatic measurement system. We apply the system to forming concave type plate that is actually used in ship manufacturing. In addition, a system was developed to automatically generate heating information, such as the heating location and the heating speed, for actual heating process. Then the system was applied to the actual heating material. It is shown that the proposed triangle heating pattern makes desired concave shape successfully. The induction heating system showed that it can be used for automation system of curved hull plates forming process replacing gas heat source.