Numéro : 2765 - Year : 2021
Additive fabrication by WAAN process of navy ship blades propellers. An innovation which became an industrial reality
Cyril Nota - Naval Group - site de Nantes-Indret, La Montagne, France
Guillaume Rückert - Naval Group Research, Bouguenais, France
Jean-Loup Heuzé, Lisa Carlino - DGA Ingénierie des projets, Paris, France
Martin Prigent - DCSSF, Paris, France
Laurent Courrègelongue- Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore, Puteaux, France
Among the various additive manufacturing solutions studied by Naval Group over the last ten years, the WAAM process (for Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing) seems particularly suitable for the manufacturing of large structural parts and particularly for marine blades propellers of Navy ships. In the Joint Laboratory for Marine Application (JLMT), a joint laboratory between the Ecole Centrale de Nantes and Naval Group, initial works have demonstrated the ability of this extrapolated welding solution to produce parts, which show at least equivalent, or superior quality compared to foundry parts. Over the last six years, DGA (French MoD procurement agency) has supported Naval Group through the funding of Research & Developpement studies to investigate the potential of this technology. Due to the good mechanical and fatigue performances of materials achieved with this process and its ability to produce complex shapes without heavy constraints (use of limited manufacturing tools, low manufacturing overthickness, …) the WAAM process can also provide innovative design solutions, placing the material accurately and just as needed.
By this process, since the end of 2020, the fabrication of heavy blades for the propeller of the French Navy mines hunter “Andromède” is the first step of the demonstration that WAAM is a well-adapted process to produce naval propellers.
In an early future, the introduction of hollow blades opens up new fields of design by avoiding the constraint of the mass limit, pushing up the limits of accessible performance (propeller efficiency and cavitation resistance improved by a profile adaptation for example). It is also possible to functionalize the blade cavities for different uses such as the placement of sensors for in-service monitoring or damping materials to reduce the noise produced by the propeller and then, open a large field of applications for the future.
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