Historicalarchived
Metal Plate Forming
OFFICE OF NAVAL RESEARCH
The current method of producing three dimensional shapes for Navy ship hulls and other structures consists of manual thermal forming by skilled labor that uses oxy-acetylene torches and water hoses. The process is very costly, labor intensive, inaccurate, and slow. Native American Technologies Company (N.A. Tech) has developed the Light Induced Thermal Shape Forming (LITS-Form) process to address this problem. The LITS-Form process uses advanced high-energy heat sources, automated manipulators to position the heat at precise locations, intelligent controls, and computerized off-line planning. The process is cost effective, uses minimal labor, produces highly accurate parts, and is up to 100 times faster than manual plate forming.
Applications
- Military and Commercial Significance:
- ONR DD21: ship hull production
- Jet engine repair
- Armor and artillery systems, remote minefield
- neutralization
- Spacecraft performance, component production
- Rapid prototyping for crash and safety testing
- Storage and safety of spent fuel and
- transportation containers
- Ship hull plate shaping is critical in NAVSEA’s DD21
- program. Manual forming, roll forming, and break
- press forming is very slow and tedious work. A typical
- Navy destroyer requires many thousands of man
- hours and up to 18 months or more to produce just
- the 3-D ship hull plate shapes. Jigs and templates are
- produced from CAD lofts, then using oxy-acetylene
- torches and water hoses a 1" thick steel plate is
- coaxed into shape.
- The LITS-Form process uses automated and robotic
- forming to reduce cost, improve speed, enhance
- accuracy, and enable better plate shape consistency
- and quality. The LITS-Form process forms the three dimensional
- plate shapes of a destroyer in about 1-2
- months, thus reducing the production process by
- ninety percent and labor cost by at least fifty percent.
- Since the LITS-Form process is completely automated,
- adding the plasma cutting option to the system
- eliminates two other inefficiencies: manual pre-cutting
- of the parts before forming and final manual trim
- cutting of components after forming. N.A. Tech’s LITSForm
- process and automated cutting option improves
- the speed and accuracy of ship hull plate shaping,
- and reduces cost for a host of other military and
- commercial endeavors.
Provenance
- Original
- https://dodtechmatch.com/dod/successstories/view.aspx?id=60088
- Archived copy
- Wayback Machine snapshot
This record was recovered from a public web archive of dodtechmatch.com and is preserved for historical reference. It may be outdated. Not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense. Contact details from the original listing have been withheld.