Page 23: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 2021)

The ‘Cutting Edge’ in Ship Repair • Full digital construction model 3D CAD is nice, but where digital modeling becomes really valuable is the inclusion of detailed parts information. Ship- builders are operating at this level, but repair yards rarely are provided with these details. • Laser scanning

Laser scanning is already being used for dimensional de- termination and veri? cation by ship repairers, but where laser scanning becomes even more valuable is for con? - mation between as designed and as built dimensions. If the model and the as built dimensioning can be tightly in- tegrated the construction as repair or conversion modules can be performed neat. • Drones

Drone inspection are still in their infancy and inspections is only the tip of the drone iceberg. Ships are big and stag- ing is expensive. Anything that replaces staging or human climbing saves money in ship repair and concersion • 3D plastic printing 3D plastic printing has limited use in commerical ship con- truction, but should also not be underestimated. Some parts may be reproducable with 3D printing and if new ship parts are 3D printed the repair part can also be 3D printed.

Meanwhile 3D printed parts can be invaluable in jigging, patterns or spacers.

• 3D metal printing 3D metal printing is still in its infancy as far as direct ap- plication in ship building and repair is concerned, but the promise is spectacular and may be even higher in repair and conversion than new construction

NC cutting and machining NC cutting is already quite com- mon in ship repair facilities, since even rough and simple

NC part cutting saves money, but to cut exact parts from an exact model will introduce an additional huge repair cost saving. • Automated welding

Various automated welding approaches are already being used by repairers, but closer tolerances in modeling will in- crease the use of automated welding approaches.

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