Most landlubbers don’t know it, but the straightening of welded deck and bulkhead plates is a crucial task in modern shipbuilding. It’s also a task that EFD Induction has been making easier and more cost-efficient for the past quarter of a century.
In 1981, EFD Induction delivered its first induction-based straightening system to the shipbuilding industry. Things have changed a lot since then. For a start, straightening systems based on induction heating have become smaller, lighter, easier to use, more mobile and more efficient. Second, EFD Induction has supplied its straightening systems to shipbuilders around the world.
One such shipbuilder that recently took delivery of EFD Induction straightening equipment is Fincantieri. With eight shipyards in Italy, Fincantieri is one of the world’s major shipbuilders, and as a builder of vessels for the Italian Navy, one that has to meet extremely tough cost and quality demands.
In fact, it is Fincantieri’s yard at Riva Trigoso in northwest Italy — a yard that mainly builds naval vessels— that recently acquired an EFD Induction TERAC 30 straightening system. The company had already used TERAC 30 at its largest yard in Monfalcone, northeast Italy. A 750,000m² facility, Monfalcone specializes in building cruise vessels (Fincantieri builds ships for some of the world’s most prestigious cruise operators: Cunard, P&O, Holland America Line, Disney Cruise Line, Carnival Corporation, etc.). EFD Induction is not, however, limited to just cruise vessel and naval shipyards. Consider the yacht-making industry. Here, the widespread use of aluminum plates for superstructure and hulls rules out traditional gasflame straightening. But EFD Induction’s TERAC 20 system is specially designed for aluminum, meaning yacht makers too can benefit from induction straightening.