Ship Repair & Maintenance Industry
At VRC Metal Systems, our vision is “To be a global leader in cold spray and advanced manufacturing process technologies.”
Cold spray technology saves money for those in the heavy equipment industry.
The US shipbuilding and repair industry directly employs over 100,000 skilled technicians. They, directly and indirectly, impact the employment of approximately 400,000 individuals who support America’s fleet of over 40,000 commercial vessels in addition to supporting fleets around the world. While apparently large, these numbers are only a small portion of the shipbuilding and repair industry worldwide.
Major shipbuilding and repair companies are developing advanced technology to manage dwindling skilled resources and are always focused on reducing the manpower and costs required to keep ships at sea.
Ship Repair and Maintenance Challenges
It doesn’t matter if you are part of the global supply chain, defending the waterways, or providing vacations to the young and old; eventually, you will need ship repair and maintenance.
For propellers alone, the tips erode, and the surface gets rough from cavitation. That roughness creates further cavitation and leads to further erosion. An unexpected breakdown will complicate preventative maintenance and extend downtime for any system. Add to that the servicing of hydraulic components, motors, pumps, shafts and bearings, and more.
Dwindling skilled resources is another challenge for this impactful industry. Quick, cost-efficient repairs using more easily learned processes like HPCS will become more critical as the availability of technicians tightens.
VRC’s Solutions for Ship Repair and Maintenance
VRC Metal Systems’ High-Pressure Cold Spray (HPCS) is a cost-efficient and time-saving method for correcting dimensional imperfections. It can also add lifespan-elongating coatings and get any vessel seaworthy faster and for a longer run with these additional benefits:
- HPCS technology can rapidly apply nickel, titanium, copper, bronze, and other metals to restore dimensional features that are no longer within tolerances due to erosion, wear, or corrosion.
- HPCS has no thickness application limit allowing for completion of dimensional repairs, as in the case of erosion or gouging.
- It can apply hard ceramic/metal coatings for wear and abrasion resistance to reduce sliding wear, erosion cavitation, or even impact damage.
- Corrosion-resistant materials such as nickel, aluminum, copper, and even titanium can be added to the surfaces of parts made from various materials, increasing component longevity once it is back in service and decreasing maintenance and repair costs over the part’s life.
- The portability of VRC Metal Systems’ HPCS equipment supports in situ repairs, significantly increasing rapid turnaround times over traditional in-facility repairs. The technology is brought to the repair area, allowing repair over replacement. This also eliminates the need to cut out hull plates for removal and replacement for large components.
- Cold spray is an inert-gas-driven process with no flames, sparks, or arcs. This aspect significantly reduces ignition sources.
- Cold spray produces very low heat resulting in no heat-affected zones making it available for use on a larger range of substrates.
- Cold spray coatings are highly dense and have compressive residual stresses, shielding the underlying part from corrosive agents and helping prevent surface crack formation and growth.
- Finally, HPCS deposits can themselves be repaired if they become worn or otherwise damaged, with no known limit to the number of repair cycles.
If you’re interested in a reliable solution for dry dock & shipyard repair, contact us today. Request a quote, and one of our Sales Engineers will contact you.
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