Smart Shipbuilding Goes to a New Level

Xu Junqiang, Wu Xiuxia

The first intelligent steel pipe finishing facility in China's shipbuilding industry has recently achieved a significant increase in production capacity, and the world's largest-width laser welding sheet production line Wan Guo Cheng has been fully commissioned and officially launched, marking a new level of intelligent manufacturing in China's shipbuilding industry.

First intelligent steel pipe finishing facility capacity boosts up

The first intelligent steel pipe finishing production line of China's shipbuilding industry in the steel pipe finishing workshop of the CSSC Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group Co., Ltd.(WS) is operating at full capacity. The comprehensive online rate of ship pipe fittings on the production line has expanded from 8% in 2020 to 21% now, and the production capacity has been steadily improved. This is mainly attributed to the intelligent steel pipe finishing capacity O&M optimization project and the welding before bending process research project.

On January 20, 2019, the first intelligent steel pipe finishing facility in China's shipbuilding industry, where the automation degree has reached the advanced level of domestic peers, passed the WS experts team acceptance,showing that the production of ship pipe fittings of WS has officially entered the intelligent manufacturing mode. After more than three years of operation, WS has carried out a series of crucial actions around the two special work of the O&M optimization project and the welding before bending process research project.

First of all, surmounting welding process difficulties of the robot automatic assembly. WS set up an intelligent manufacturing promotion project team, which cooperated with experts in the field of welding to carry out special problem tackling air holes, arc pits in arc extinguishing in the automatic assembly welding process of flange and straight pipe, and quality problems such as insufficient fusion depth of thick wall pipe, and carried out a scientific and rigorous process scheme demonstration.

By optimizing the running trajectory of the robot welding arm,welding stick output speed and welding electrical parameters, the problems of air hole and extinguishing arc pits in the welding process were successfully solved, and the multi-layer multi-pass welding method was creatively adopted to achieve high quality penetration in the welding process of thick wall pipe.

Secondly, the systematic accumulation of automatic pipe fittings welding process. On the basis of a large range of statistical analysis of WS traditional supporting piping product specification and type, the project team carried out automatic assembly welding process research of flange and pipe fittings covering 4 types of national standards and marine standards,48-219mm-diameter carbon steel pipe and stainless steel pipe. A lot of welding tests resulted in more than 40 guidelines for robot automatic a ssemblyweldingoperation.Finished pipe fittings produced through the guiding processes have successfully passed the welding process evaluation of CCS and other classification societies.

Thirdly, the breakthrough in high steady state operation technology of the intelligent production line. In view of the problems of misreporting of digital and intelligent processing procedures,interruption of industrial Internet information transmission and robot calibration deviation, O&M technology tackling and knowledge update projects and skill upgrading actions in the field of intelligent manufacturing were carried out.

According to the PDCA mode, the project team regularly implemented software upgrade and inspection maintenance technology research of five systems in the intelligent steel pipe finishing production line, carried out training in industrial robot O&M and intelligent production line operation,from the perspective of man-machinematerial-method loop, the intelligent production line high steady operation technology difficulties were deeply overcome, under the remote control of the centralized control center, the intelligent steel pipe production line realized continuous stable unattended production.

Fourthly,promoting the transformation and upgrading of ship pipe fittings production mode by means of welding before bending. Based on the research of no-allowance pipe cutting and elbow angle compensation process,WS has accumulated 960 sets of process parameters through a large number of elbow testing and data analysis,forming a 2D and 3D elbow data process databank covering 48-89 mm pipe diameter and different wall thick pipe fittings, which further improved the capacity of flexible steel pipe finishing production line.

The pipe fitting on-line rate of flexible steel pipe finishing production line has expanded from 8% in 2020 to 21% now, and the target is to expand to 30%. Under the strong support of automatic assembly and welding technology of flexible steel pipe finishing production line, the assembly accuracy and welding forming quality of ship pipe fittings have been greatly improved.

The world's largestwidth laser welding sheet facility onstream

On May 10, the world's largestwidth laser welding sheet production line wasfullycommissioned and officially launched in CMIH Haimen Base. The production line has a maximum processing size of 24m×36m, and an across-the-board operation is expected for Q3 this year.

Laserwelding thinplate production line is the core of intelligent manufacturing in Haimen base, and with the maximum processing size of 24m×36m, it realizes automatic control covering steel plate feeding,edge milling, tailored blank welding,marking out weld joint grinding,longitudinal welding, using highspeed optical fiber laser composite welding to complete plate splicing and longitudinal angle welding. At the same time, the production line can achieve sheet splicing of different thicknesses in overall length and width, can meet the construction needs of large, medium and small luxury cruise ships, online rate can reach more than 90%, with strong adaptability. The whole assembly line adopts the U layout design, through MES system integration, assembly line work efficiency and shipbuilding discrete work flexibility are both taken into account, efficient intelligent manufacturing of plate section is realized.

The commissioning started with the completion of the first longitudinal welding joint of No. 3 longitudinal welding position automatic equipment. The welding gantry on the No. 3 longitudinal welding position is equipped with 4 laser composite welding trolleys. The station can realize the all-process automatic longitudinal welding operation involving taking material from the profile magnetic suction gantry, positioning, compacting,plate reverse deformation setting,preheating, welding, etc. Through linkage with No. 2 cutting station,the automatic production process of cutting, sanding, marking out, grinding,grabbing, positioning and welding of longitudinal welded plate can be realized.

In order to ensure early operation of laser sheet production line,CMIH Haimen Base and relevant departments in Haimen District communicated and coordinated for many times, and successfully solved the problem that equipment commissioning engineer could not arrive on the site due to the COVID-19 epidemic. Since the commissioning engineer was in place on May 5, the relevant joint commissioning team have worked together to ensure the commissioning of the production line. It only took 4 days to carry out the test welding of No.3 station. The commissioning start laid a solid foundation for the subsequent commissioning of the whole section station and the formal operation of the production line.

Inrecentyears, in the process of exploring and promoting“Cruise Made in China”, CMIH has gradually formed a modern cruise production mode featuring intelligent manufacturing, innovative manufacturing and collaborative management. With the world's largest laser welding sheet assembly line,intelligent pipe processing center,the world's largest-width cabin unit assembly line and cruise dock as a solid foundation, CMIH has successfully overcome the weight control, sheet welding, interior decoration matching,complex coordination, provided powerful hardware resource guarantee for CMIH Haimen Base to achieve annual output of 1.5 medium cruises and 2 polar adventure cruise capacity target, also played a positive role in further enhancing local manufacturing of cruises.