Numerical Calculation of High-Strength-Steel Saddle Plate Forming Suitable for Lightweight Construction of Ships

Materials (Basel). 2023 May 19;16(10):3848. doi: 10.3390/ma16103848.

Abstract

With the demand for construction of lightweight ships and polar ships, high-strength steel is increasingly applied in shipbuilding. There are a large number of complex curved plates to be processed in ship construction. The main method for forming a complex curved plate is line heating. A saddle plate is an important type of double-curved plate, which affects the resistance performance of the ship. The existing research on high-strength-steel saddle plates is lacking. To solve the problem of forming for high-strength-steel saddle plates, the numerical calculation of line heating for a EH36 steel saddle plate was studied. By combining it with a line heating experiment of low-carbon-steel saddle plates, the feasibility of numerical calculation based on the thermal elastic-plastic theory for high-strength-steel saddle plates was verified. Under the premise that the processing conditions such as the material parameters, heat transfer parameters, and the constraint mode of the plate were correctly designed, the effects of the influencing factors on deformation of the saddle plate could be studied by the numerical calculation method. The numerical calculation model of line heating for high-strength-steel saddle plates was established, and the effects of geometric parameters and forming parameters on shrinkage and deflection were studied. This research can provide ideas for the lightweight construction of ships and provide data support for automatic processing of curved plates. It can also provide inspiration for curved plate forming in fields such as aerospace manufacturing, the automotive industry, and architecture.

Keywords: high-strength steel; lightweight construction; line heating; plastic working; plate forming.