Assessment of technological usefulness of panel production line in shipbuilding process

This paper presents assessment of technological usefulness of panel production line in prefabrication process of large ship hull sections, in which special attention is paid to producibility of welding operations. Basing on the assessment these authors worked out hierarchy of analyzed sequences of welding technological processes as well as production line stands used for the processes. The assessment was performed on the basis of analysis of a concept of panel production line based on real production lines functioning in shipbuilding industry, as well as technical documentation of typical hull sections of a multi-purpose ferry. The presented analysis took into account impact of technological - constructional parameters onto producibility of welding process of prefabricated sections. Among these parameters the following were numbered: mass of the sections and number of their elements, total length of welds, labour consumption, material consumption as well as linear heat input in welding operations. On the basis of the achieved results, places which worsen effectiveness of production line operation were identified, as a result it was possible to formulate proposals for modernization of flow prefabrication line for hull sections.