Project Number: S2892

Project Title: Cold Cutting Steel

Period of Performance: SEP20 – JAN23

When building steel ships, it is a common practice to employ “hot work” methods for cutting steel. This is true not only to fabricate the ship components, such as plate and shape products, but also to remove temporary attachments or other welded components that may need to be relocated later in the construction cycle. Hot work methods often employ the use of handheld burning torches and arc gouging equipment, which are prone to imprecision. Imprecise cuts can result in wasting lifting pads by cutting too much material and cause rework due to damage on finished areas of the hull. Currently, there are no commercial-off-the-shelf options for a safe, handheld “cold-cutting” device to remove large lifting pads. This Center for Naval Metalworking (CNM) project developed a safe, cold-cutting device capable of removing lifting pads with a precise cut line. General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (BIW) and CNM have finished all project tasking, which included baselining, developing a use case, and down-selecting to Claxton Engineering to develop and adapt its current offering to make precise cuts along the ship hull. The latter half of the project effort provided BIW with a viable alternative to removing lifting pads without damaging the hull integrity while resulting in a safer process that extends the life of lifting pads.

By utilizing the new “cold” work method, BIW will reduce the need for rework caused by late-stage construction damage from the hot work cutting process, which damaged the paint and sensitive components on the interior of the hull, resulting in accelerated ship construction.
By eliminating the use of hot work and manual cutting from the lifting pad removal process and replacing with a “cold” cutting approach, BIW estimates five-year savings of $1.7M and labor reduction of 3,005 hours for DDG 51 Class destroyers.

The implementation hull number will begin with DDG 132. The results will be implemented primarily in the Outfitting Halls and Land Level Transfer Facility. BIW anticipates initial implementation in the 1Q FY2026.