page_title: Shipbuilding
section_title: Modern shipbuilding manufacturing techniques
hierarchical_section_title: Shipbuilding / Worldwide shipbuilding industry / Modern shipbuilding manufacturing techniques
caption_attribution_description: English: I, Adrian Jones, am the author of this photograph. I give full consent for this image to be public domain and used freely. It was taken at HMNB Portsmouth on Saturday July 2nd 2005. This image may also be found along with others on my website: http://www.uss-sheffield.co.uk. According to the uploader: VT Group plc, which owns the yard, did allow photography in the areas photographed. Nothing in those photographs is in a classified or secret area.
context_page_description: Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.
  Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both commercial and military, are referred to as "naval engineering". The construction of boats is a similar activity called boat building.
  The dismantling of ships is called ship breaking.
context_section_description: Modern shipbuilding makes considerable use of prefabricated sections. Entire multi-deck segments of the hull or superstructure will be built elsewhere in the yard, transported to the building dock or slipway, then lifted into place. This is known as "block construction". The most modern shipyards pre-install equipment, pipes, electrical cables, and any other components within the blocks, to minimize the effort needed to assemble or install components deep within the hull once it is welded together.
  Ship design work, also called naval architecture, may be conducted using a ship model basin. Previously, loftsmen at the mould lofts of shipyards were responsible for taking the dimensions, and details from drawings and plans and translating this information into templates, battens, ordinates, cutting sketches, profiles, margins and other data. However, since the early 1970s computer-aided design became normal for the shipbuilding design and lofting process.
  Modern ships, since roughly 1940, have been produced almost exclusively of welded steel. Early welded steel ships used steels with inadequate fracture toughness, which resulted in some ships suffering catastrophic brittle fracture structural cracks (see problems of the Liberty ship). Since roughly 1950, specialized steels such as ABS Steels with good properties for ship construction have been used. Although it is commonly accepted that modern steel has eliminated brittle fracture in ships, some controversy still exists. Brittle fracture of modern vessels continues to occur from time to time because grade A and grade B steel of unknown toughness or fracture appearance transition temperature (FATT) in ships' side shells can be less than adequate for all ambient conditions.
caption: Construction of prefabricated module blocks of HMS Dauntless at BAE's Portsmouth Shipyard.
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