Ship Repair Transformation Seeks Breakthrough

By Li Yaner

“Ship repair enterprises must fulfill environmental protection responsibility and invulnerability is no way here,” said Li Zhengjian, secretary general of the Ship Repair Branch of the China Shipbuilding Industry Association,at the New Era China Green Ship-Repair Industry Development Forum and the Second Ship-Repair Technological Change Field Promotion Meeting in Zhoushan at the end of last year. It is imperative that the Chinese ship-repair industry conducts green transformation.Chinese ship-repair enterprises headed by Zhoushan Wanbang Yongyue Ship Repair Co Ltd made remarkable breakthrough in ultrahigh pressure water hull surface pretreatment and other green ship-repair technology. However, green ship-repair cannot be accomplished by merely buying a few pieces of equipment and conducting a few renovations, and the green path of China ship repair takes time from management to production and from technology to cost.

Ultrahigh Pressure Water Hull Surface Pretreatment

Before the meeting was held,representatives of nearly 50 Chinese shiprepair enterprises and sector organizations and marine equipment enterprises came to Wanbang Yongyue to watch field operation display of advanced technical equipment represented by the company’s ultrahigh pressure water jet rust removal.

In the dockyard, a dozen rust removal heads erected overhead lined up at the dock bottom and were conducting ultrahigh pressure water jet rust removal on a 50,000dwt LPG carrier hull. Compared with traditional sand blasting cleaning, the coating process was cleaner and most efficient, less resource consuming, thus turning green ship repair into reality.

Over recent years, Wanbang Yongyue introduced and developed a number of advanced mechanized and intelligent working equipment including ultrahigh pressure water jet rust removal technology and operation robot and realized ultrahigh pressure water jet rust removal for each arriving ship in H2 2017. Wanbang Yongyue has 50 ultrahigh pressure water pumps to meet two docks’ requirement for synchronous ultrahigh pressure water operation; the rust removal heads mounted in a high altitude vehicle were lined up at the bottom of the docks and were able to meet ship side operation requirement.The four independently developed dock bottom rust removal vehicles were provided with reciprocating moving mechanism, single job width reached 2m,with good rust removal effect and high job efficiency. “In line with characteristics of hull in different locations and surface and treatment requirements in various conditions, different ultrahigh pressure water treatment processes were developed. Now, treatment can be made to saponified, marine organism, bubbled,aging, oil contaminated and various corrosive surfaces,” said Zhang Xingbo,assistant general manager of Wanbang Yongyue. The technology team realized hull cleaning, oil stain removal, marine organism removal, WA1.0 grade rust removal, WA2.0 grade rust removal and other different work processes through long-term research and by adjusting ultrahigh pressure water jet pressure and jet shape, able to meet various operational requirements for hull.

Visiting enterprises shared respective green ship repair technology promotion developments. “Although we phased out sand blasting process and made combined application of HP atomization and ultrahigh pressure water rust removal, due to absence of rust removal head, direct jet of ultrahigh pressure water is still used,” said Hou Wenke, head of the Engineering Department of the Ship Repair Branch under Wuchuan Group Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co Ltd.The practice will cause water splash in all directions and waste recycle issue remains unsolved. In addition, CSSC Chengxi Shipbuilding Co Ltd is further studying water blasting technology and plans promotion next years.

Wanbang Yongyue General Manager Chen Yong held dock repair technology, especially coating technology change is triggering a revolution in Chinese dock repair technology and commercial format. The revolution means traditional sand blasting steel plate surface pretreatment technology will face phase-out in Chinese dock repair technology, while ultrahigh pressure water automatic and semi-automatic spray technology will be popularized rapidly. For that purpose, Wanbang Yongyue pumped almost RMB100 million in new technical equipment.

Survival Remains Difficult

Talking about green development of China ship repair, industry capacity surplus,low-price competition and low profitability are inevitably mentioned once again.

Weak profitability of the whole industry is an unarguable reality. CSSC Chengxi General Manager Lu Ziyou said on one hand large, intelligent and young ship trend requires shipyards to make relevant supporting investments to cater to market demand; on the other hand, the Chinese ship repair industry is facing severe capacity surplus and new capacity keeping coming into market causes aggravating competition environment.“Sticking to the bottom line is essential,only with better corporate profitability, can our work have foothold,” noted Lu Ziyou.

“There can be no construction without destruction,” Chen Yong believes Chinese ship repairers should get rid of inertia thought. “30-year process is still in extensive use. One result of the Chinese ship repair industry capacity expansion under traditional process technology conditions is labor intensive attribute largely remains unchanged, the feature of competition among players is still employment of low-price competition to raise corporate order taking and market share, while ship repairers lack sensitivity to new technology advance and innovation.” Chen Yong holds technical competition pattern among ship repairers will be shaped gradually. In 2014 Wanbang Yongyue established its development vision of“building technology-driven green ship enterprise”, extended along dock repair mechanization depth, changing dock repair coating process technology, leading overall development, thus going towards intelligent ship repair.

Anhui province rectification efforts have eliminated much backward ship repair capacity and will promote improvement of local ship repair industry management and technology. In Zhoushan, an important city of ship repair in China, the local government not only conducts stringent supervision to local key polluters, but also accepts complaints of citizens and directly finds out corporate responsibility, which objectively boosts green transformation of enterprises including Wanbang Yongyue.

At the end of last year, the Ship Repair Branch of the China Shipbuilding Industry Association issued“Rectification action plan of ship repair industry in environmental protection handling supervision of the Yangtze River Economic Belt”. The industrial organization suggests that in the circumstance that sand blasting remains dominant process, all coastal ship repairers should satisfy the requirements of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, strengthen and perfect rules and regulations, and exercise management over waste sand, solid waste and other pollutants: sand blasting rust removal garbage dropped into water should be eliminated; out-of-control should eradicated in six months; out-oflimits discharge should meet the standard in 12 months. The industrial organization plans to assist all coastal enterprises to step up input, speed up technological upgrade and technical breakthrough in dust and pollutant prevention under the condition of immature new process and new equipment in place of sand blasting.

Green transformation and upgrade of the Chinese ship-repair industry is both opportunity and challenge and more an irresistable trend. When environmental protection rectification of the ship repair industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is in full swing, can coastal and national rectification be far behind?★