One Side Automatic Welding of Curved Panel of Ship's Hull

This article deals with the specific methods for promoting modernization of the welding process of the curved panel. One of the vital problems in the modern shipbuilding industry is its modernization by means of mechanization and automation, to overcome labor shortage in the recent years, during the hull assembly process. Conventionally, the modernization of the hull assembly process has been achieved mainly by the automation of welding, but its application has been limited to the flat panel units only. The curved panel units usually are made up with three dimensional faces ; furthermore, each unit has different shape and arrangement. For this reason, it has been considerd impossible to apply mechanization and automation, and the assembly work has had to rely on skilled workers. Therefore, at present the curved panel work requires more skilled workers than the flat panel work. From the viewpoints mentioned above, the authors have conducted checkings of modernization in extensive fields of the assembly process of curved panel units, and as the first step, the authors have developed an automatic assembly apparatus for the curved panel, composed of the assembling jig, the welding positioner, and the one side automatic welding apparatus.