Welds and a Canadian Shipyard:

During the nineteen nineties, I was invited to provide a weld evaluation for an East Coast Canadian Ship Yard. At the yard I was astounded to find that welding was beyond chaos, it was diney land upside down. It was difficult for me to believe that the penetrating MIG spray transfer process was not allowed for the common steel welds, while the cold MIG short circuit process was used on most of the welds. Of course the second fact I discovered was no one at the yard knew what short circuit and spray transfer was.

To produce the common 1/4 - 6 mm, steel fillet welds on the Canadian Navy frigates, the 200 plus ship yard welders would first use the MIG "short circuit transfer" even on the flat / horizontal weld positions on common steel parts that ranged from 1/18 to 1 inch thick. The short circuit weld transfer mode is a method normally used to weld thin gage sheet metals < 0.100. When I questioned why the welders were using the low current Short Circuit mode, I simply got that confused weld look. The short circuit parameters using 045 (1.2mm) wire with a wire feed rate of 200 to 350 ipm, 180 to 230 amps and 22 to 23 volts, would without question cause excessive lack of weld fusion, at the root of the welds made on parts > 4 mm.

To add to the weld problems at the yard, the short circuit welds were then followed by a second cold weld pass made with an 045 1.2 mm, gas shielded "all position" E71T-1 flux cored wire. These fast freeze wires while idealy suited for slow moving vertical up welds are often poorly suited to attain optimum weld fusion on steel welds > 3/16 made in the flat / horizontal weld positions.

At the yard the NDT, UT / RT would find large issues with lack of weld fusion, excess weld porosity and extensive weld slag entrapment from the E71T-1 wires. As welders lack process training it was interesting to note in this yard the welders believed they could make all the welds with one wire feed setting. The flux cored wire feed rates were set at the same low wire feed rate as the MIG short circuit setting, 200 to 350 ipm. (10 to 3 o'clock) This flux cored wire feed setting while suited to vertical up welds would cause extensive lack of fusion,slag and porosity issues on parts > 5 mm.

THE CANADIAN SHIP YARD WORKERS WERE ALLOWED BY HANDS OFF ENGINEERS AND MANAGERS TO USE A SINGLE WIRE FEED SETTING THAT COULD FOR THE MIG WIRE AND FLUX CORED WIRES. UNFORTUNATELY THAT WELD SETTING WAS THE CAUSE OF EXTENSIVE WELD REWORK AND COULD IN FUTURE JEPODIZE THE STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY OF THE CANADIAN NAVY FRIGATES

The lack of weld process expertise and process control in this ship yard was beyond even that found in many auto plants. In this weld process chaos, the welders would not listen to the apathetic engineers and ship yard management, and to put salt in the wounds, every cold weld they did took over 60% longer than it should have, which likely was not an issue as those nice Canadian tax payers footed the welding bills.

This yard spent over a million dollars annually on welder training, again a ridiculous waste of tax payers money as it was certainly not effective MIG or flux cored training. Canadians may not have to worry about weapons of mass destruction, the canadian Navy personnel however should worry about the welds that hold their frigates together.

By the way my weld analysis at the ship yard indicated that if the Canadian welders understood the processes that they used and set optimum MIG and flux cored weld parameters, the ship yard welds could be carried out 60% faster. The annual weld cost savings with the recommended new weld settings for the ship yard and the reduction in weld rework, would have been over 3 million dollars. My report on both the weld quality and cost reduction potential never got far as the manager who reviewed it. I guess he was too embarresed to present to his own taem or possibly the manager did not want the navy to be aware of the quality of its ships.

 

IS THE HIGH COST OF U.S. NAVAL SHIPBUILDING FINALLY CATCHING
UP WITH THE NAVY LEADERSHIP? Tim Colton, September 3, 2004.

The authoritative Washington newsletter "Inside the Navy" reports that the Navy's budget request for FY06 will include only four new ships that will still cost $6 billion. The four ships are: one SSN at a budget-busting $2.5 billion; one DD(X) at a mind-boggling $1.5 billion; one LPD at a ludicrous $1.0 billion; and one T-AKE at a relatively modest $0.4 billion.

The high costs are no real surprise. Naval shipbuilding costs have been out of control for about 15 years now and the Navy has brought it on itself. First, it essentially eliminated competition by forcing more than half the shipbuilding industrial base, including critical suppliers, out of business. Then it created a contracting environment in which the few remaining shipbuilders not only have no incentive to reduce costs but are actively encouraged to increase costs. Finally, it has driven per-ship costs up even further by specifying ever more complex ship designs: there is no bell or whistle that the Navy doesn't want to have at least three of on every one of its new ships. There are other factors at play here but these are the most significant ones. The net result is that we now have a big-ship shipbuilding industry that is the most expensive and the most incompetently managed in the world and we have now, not coincidentally, almost completely lost our ability to build deep-draft merchant ships.

I have to keep reinforcing this broad allegation with a fundamental fact: in the 1970s, productivity in U.S. big-ship shipbuilding was measured to be about half that in Japanese shipbuilding; today it is around a quarter. (So much for the National Shipbuilding Research Program.)

I also have to keep pointing out that the problem isn't with U.S. shipyard workers: our successful small yards demonstrate that. The problem also isn't with U.S. shipyard facilities: they are all just as good as the older European and Japanese yards. The problem in the yards is with U.S. shipyard management. There's way too much of it and it doesn't seem to have a clue what it's doing.

But the real problem is the U.S. Navy itself. The Navy dug this hole and can't find its way out. It talks about "acquisition reform" but what it means by this is spreading the appropriation of funds for individual ships over multiple years. This would not, of course, have any impact whatever on the high cost of ships: it would merely obfuscate the accounting of that high cost. We do, indeed, need acquisition reform: we need rigorous cost-benefit analysis of every new ship system; we need elimination of all but the most critical change orders; we need firm-fixed-price contracts, with incentives for cost reduction and schedule acceleration and penalties for cost over-runs and delays; we need to reintroduce competition by requiring prime contractors to competitively procure x% of each contract from the second-tier shipbuilders; we need detailed audits of indirect costs and non-allowance of about half of them. And much more besides.

 

CANADA BUYS A BRITISH SUB LEMON
WITH POOR LIMEY WELDS.

 

 

Canada has complained about four second-hand submarines bought from Britain which it says are in need of extensive repairs. The Canadians are likely to demand compensation from the Ministry of Defence. The four diesel subs were fully operational before they were sold Ministry of Defence statement One of the vessels, the submarine Victoria, is currently in dry dock in Halifax. The MoD had said it was fully seaworthy and fit to dive but the Victoria leaked hydraulic fluid during its voyage home. That vessel also had a dented hull and the Canadians dived to full depth unaware of the risk. The dent was discovered later during a check up. There is also an investigation under way into the possibility of a crack in a valve on top of the submarines. The potential problem came to light after the Royal Navy found such a crack on a submarine sitting in Britain waiting to be delivered. Exhaust valves on all four subs must now be taken apart. The repair bill is already approaching C$1m (approximately £500,000) and BBC correspondent Tom Carver says Canada will probably demand compensation.

Britain no longer uses diesel subs. In a statement, the MoD said the four diesel subs were fully operational before they were sold. The problems have caused embarrassment for the UK, which had mothballed the four vessels before the Canadians bought them for about £332m (C$750m). Leak alert

The list of submarine problems include;

· A dent in the Victoria that will cost up to half a million.
· Bad high-pressure welds in three of the four subs.
· A bad fuel tank in one sub.
· One sub was leaking (I'd image that is bad news in any naval vessel and doubly so in a submarine)
· Cracked valves in the diesel generator that would cause flooding if they failed.

 

____________________________________________

THANK GOD FOR CANADIAN HOCKY STICKS "A" HMCS Windsor was carrying out a training exercise off the coast of Nova Scotia when a hydraulic system failed, causing a leak. The submarine was returning toshore when the submarine sprung a second, more serious leak after a crew member turned a switch the wrong way. About 2,000 litres of water flooded into the compartments. When the Windsor first made its way to Canada last year, CBC television filmed the journey. But during the trip the submarine leaked hydraulic fluid, the radar mast leaked and had to be fixed with masking tape and a rubbish bag, the sonar broke and another faulty piece of equipment had to be unjammed with a hockey stick. The poor welds on Canadian submarines will be a good match for the poor welds on Canada's frigates see next story.

 

 

Examine the nuclear reactor failures caused by you know what on British
Tireless Submarines

 

Ship yards, auto plants, tractor plants, the great thing about any large industry thats relies on welding is there is always a wonderful opportunity for dramatic quality improvements and extensive weld cost reduction. However the first thing to overcome is engineers or managers who claim weld expertise and yet do not own the processes important to their companies.

 

 

IF A SHIP YARD WAS RUN LIKE A SHIP: It's unfortunate that the trend in weld manufacturing in ship yards during the last two decades has been "hands off management and engineers who do not own the processes vital to the products they build. Engineers who use the title "weld engineer" without the ability to control a simple two control weld process. I hade a good laugh in 2005 when I read about ship yard managers looking at laser welding for ship yards, facilities that typically have for decades struggled to implement or control the simple to use MIG or flux cored process. Ship yards that often have one inch gaps in the weld joints. Ship yard management would do well to compare themselves with the way efficient ships or submarines are run. A captain or engineer on these vessels typically can operate or take apart anything on a ship. I am not suggesting that this radical, technical expertise should be part of any manufacturing managers job description. I am suggesting that today we need a compromise in which both managers and engineers show more interest in their equipment and examine the requirements for best practices and process controls. To get manufacturing management and engineers back into the equipment process ownership loop, an important first step would be for these individuals to show the workers that when they open their mouths, they can provide welders something most dont have"weld process control knowledge". Looking for excellent MIG and flux cored weld process knowlege? a good start would be this book "A Management and Engineers Guide To MIG"

Much more ship and weld issue data in the bad weld section.