Finite element analysis of ship hull plate forming with heating and rapid cooling

Recently, automatic manufacturing system using electro-magnetic induced heating, water cooling and in-line measurement has been developed to produce curved ship hull plate. However, the effectiveness of this system strongly depends on deformation prediction. The effects of analysis program were comprehensively presented. In this study, to predict the deformed shape quickly, finite element program using shell element was developed. Plate is assumed to show the thermo-elasto-plastic behaviour. The optimized heating information is obtained by analyzing the difference between current shape and target shape. Heat transfer, phase transformation and solidification and other effects were reflected in the calculation of heating information. By considering the difference between the predicted shape and the target shape, the heating information can be enhanced to reduce the error. To verify the accuracy of the developed program, the deformed shape is compared with the ones by commercial programs, for two examples. To evaluate the effectiveness of the program, the simulation and experiment were carried out for real problem. In the comparison of deformed shape, we found the good agreement between simulation and experiment. It was also shown that the real boundary conditions should be taken into account to improve the prediction.