BUILDING BY COMPUTER

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30144, 30 May 1963, Page 20

BUILDING BY COMPUTER

‘Could Herald Revolution’

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) LONDON. May 29.

The first British-built ship to be “faired”—that is, shaped on the hull—by an electronic computer, has been launched in Glasgow. It is a 10,000 ton freighter and, according to the “Glasgow Herald’s” shipping correspondent, it could do more than mark a new departure in ship-building design and technique.

“With other electronic novelties it could herald a revolution in construction, not only retiring a number of key ship-building trades but also devouring a great more ot the work from the waterside. “It could return the shipbuilding industries of the world to scratch and thereby give British yards a fresh start in the race. ‘ “That is because, from fairing the hull to an exact mathematical formulae, which is the ultimate aim, it is only a step to dimensioning precisely by the same means, individual plates. “Instead of being brought in from the rolling mills at an approximate size to be marked off. cut to shape and formed at' the yards, these plates might be delivered ready for clapping on to the hull.

“Like motor-car manufacturing, would become more than ever a business of assembly in respect of the main structure as well as machinery and fitting.

“The transfer of plateforming to specialist concerns, which might be well inland near the source of steel supplies, would clearly alter the contribution of various, still strongly entrenched, ‘blafik squad’ trades by the waterside.

“Far-reaching changes could be now on the way. . . . It is clear enough that taken together with many other new things, the fairing of ships hulls by precise mathematical methods will pile up a great many problems of adjustment on tables in both ship-building companies and labour unions.” the correspondent says.