REDUCTION OF OVERWELDING AND DISTORTION FOR NAVAL SURFACE COMBATANTS, Part 2: Weld Sizing Effects on Shear and Fatigue Performance

摘要

As high‐strength thinner‐steel implementation in ship designs increase, dimensional management becomes criticalrnto control construction costs and schedule in ship production. In the US shipbuilding industry, improvements tornshipbuilding facilities and processing technology have not kept pace with the rate of change in ship design.rnAdditionally, new designs using thinner steels are subject to legacy weld sizing criteria possibly leading torninappropriately sized welds on lightweight materials. These two factors result in widespread overwelding; causingrnsevere plate deformation in naval vessels during construction and non‐value added labor to correct as needed forrnfit up tolerances. Historically, shear and fatigue strength data has been focused on the larger welds and thickerrnsteel plates typical of the state of the practice when these legacy weld sizing criteria were developed. In order tornoptimize weld design and production in modern, lightweight naval surface vessels, there is a need to develop morernaccurate data about the performance of precision fillet welds for thin steels.