Composite Work Continues For U.S. Navy Ships
GULFPORT, Miss. — As Northrop Grumman was preparing for the March 24 christening of the amphibious transport dock ship LPD-24 Arlington, the company also was putting together the mast for the LPD-25 using the same fabric of composite materials that not only make the LPD unique but, company officials say, represent the future of U.S. Navy shipbuilding.
And while the San Antonio-class of Navy warship masts represent a major step forward in terms of composite construction, Northrop — soon to become Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) — has continued to make vast strides in building composite topside structures for the DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers and aircraft carriers, starting with the CVN 77 and further with work on the CVN 78 Ford-class vessels.
“The LPD was futuristic,” says Karrie Trauth, Northrop program manager for the DDG 1000. With the DDG 1000 Zumwalt destroyers, she says, the future has become now.
Northrop is building the Zumwalt-class integrated composite deckhouses and helo hangars, as well as parts of the ships’ aft peripheral vertical launch systems. The company had to construct a new set of manufacturing buildings to handle work on the Zumwalt, whose composite deckhouse structure is nearly double the width and five times the length of the Antonio-class ship masts.
While other companies, even in shipbuilding, also are crafting vessels out of composites, none is involved in programs on the scale and scope of the Zumwalt-class work being done at the Northrop composite shop in the Gulf.
Composite-Industry Processes
The biggest panels, for example, can take more than 24 hr. to infuse with resin and cure. The company has adapted some composite-industry processes — and developed some of its own — to infuse and cure the resin and then check each piece with special ultrasonic inspection equipment.
That’s a major investment for a ship class that has been truncated from about two dozen down to its current fleet size of three. Many analysts say the Navy wanted a ship that was too transformational — that the service was looking for too many improvements with its advanced radar and other systems.
While the Navy has scaled back some of the developmental activity on those systems, the composite work has continued. Northrop is about 60% through its work on the first ship, the DDG 1000, and has finished about 10% of the work for DDG 1001.
One of the major selling points for composite construction is that not only is it as strong as steel, but the lighter material is likely to decrease life-cycle costs dramatically, Northrop says. Life-cycle costs have become increasingly important in determining the fate of many Pentagon acquisitions.
Photo credit: U.S. Navy
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