Materials selection for current and future UK naval requirements

Abstract

In recent years, naval shipbuilding in the UK has been given a significant boost with the Type 45 destroyer programme and the Queen Elizabeth Class (QEC) aircraft carrier programme. Both these programmes raised a number of new issues with regard to the rolled materials used in their construction. The Type 45 programme focused heavily on the use of higher strength steel to reduce weight, which in itself generated other challenges from the use of thin plate. Significant issues about residual stresses became evident through the construction phase and also through some joint academic studies. The QEC programme utilised some of the material concepts developed on Type 45, but included the need to use a higher strength steel on the flight deck and the hanger deck. Specific areas of the vessels are subject to through thickness tensile stresses and almost 3000 t of plate are Z grade. Within that, a small proportion is required to meet a 60uC toughness requirement, in certain areas. This has led on to a more wide ranging review of currently available materials and their potential application within naval shipbuilding. The use of still higher strength steels has been considered in a number of thickness ranges and their potential for blast resistance is being assessed.

Material aspects of underwater marine systems in Greece

“…Although many different materials (e.g. titanium, aluminum alloys and bronze alloys) have been developed and used for marine applications around the world, steels are the most representative widely used materials in shipbuilding, submarine constructions and other relative fabrications because steels are approximately five times cheaper than aluminum [1,2]. In Greece steels are currently used in the previously mentioned constructions and consequently this pre-existing application can be the basis for the construction of unfamiliar underwater sea systems (like the submerged parts of Wave Energy Converters and Tidal Energy Converters).…”