Project Number: S2812

Project Title: Robotic Beveling and Tampering Cell

Period of Performance: JUL20 – DEC22

General Dynamics Electric Boat (GDEB) currently uses labor-intensive operations and processes to bevel and taper structural steel. This includes hull plating and hull frames. Plate beveling and tapering is a manual process dependent on annotated paper sketches, manual burning equipment, and tribal knowledge of various steel behaviors. Currently, beveled and tapered plate parts are manually laid out and then beveled and tapered by using manually operated torches or grinding equipment.

Robotic capability has advanced enough to replace these manual functions, eliminating production delays resulting from operator availability and producing bevels and tapers of consistently high quality. Similar proven technologies from the heavy steel fabrication industry will be evaluated and leveraged as the starting point for development under this project.

The objective of this Center for Naval Metalworking (CNM) project was to utilize state-of-the-art bevel and tapering equipment to increase throughput in steel processing to meet the demands of the VIRGINIA Class submarine (VCS), VIRGINIA Payload Module (VPM), and COLUMBIA Class submarine (CLB). Project results enabled automation of steel plate beveling processes, improving accuracy and reducing labor/time costs. This system has significant reduction in the amount of time spent manually burning and grinding the taper (i.e., scarf), reduction the amount of quality control required, and reduction rework that is typical of this difficult beveling procedure. Moreover, the new technology produced more accurate part-to-part fit-ups, which reduced downstream fitting, grinding, and welding costs.

This CNM project is expected to provide an estimated savings of $568.0K per VCS hull, $756.0K per VCS hull with VIRGINIA Payload Module (VPM) and $1.2M per CLB hull for five-year savings of $13.3M.

The solution technology is expected to be implemented at General Dynamic – Electric Boat’s Quonset Point, RI, facility during the second quarter of FY2024.