An integrated approach to determine optimal process information of large-scale line-heating process with deformation simulation

In shipbuilding industries, line heating has been used to fabricate plates of compound curvature. Line heating is a labor-intensive, time-consuming, and manual process carried out only by skilled workers. To enhance productivity as well as accuracy, it is imperative to automate such a process. A kinematic analysis has been introduced as a way to suggest a layout of computed heating lines. However, no verification of the resulting heating lines has been made either qualitatively or quantitatively. In this paper, an integrated system that performs the deformation simulation of plates with compound curvature is developed. This system generates optimal process information for the fabrication of curved plates using the line-heating process, by combining kinematic analysis, thermo-elasto-plastic analysis, and object comparison. The integrated system is implemented and verified by large-scale curved models used in shipyards.