FULL SCALE LINES

Introduction

The purpose of this lesson is to discuss about FAIRING of Lines of a ship.

We will discuss why FAIRING is needed, and three methods of fairing:

 The traditional full scale method.

 The 1/10 scale lofting (Optical Lofting) and
 Computer aided fairing.
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What are fair lines?

Why fairing is needed?

Ship’s LINES, which define the Hull Form, consist of:

the body plan (vertical transverse sections),

the half breadth plan (horizontal sections – water lines), and
the profile or shear plan (vertical longitudinal sections- buttock lines).

All three plans together define the moulded hull shape.

Each point on the hull surface corresponds to a particular point on
each of the above planer curves.

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What are fair lines?

• A fair curvature plot should be free of any unnecessary variation,

i.e. the distribution of curvature on a fair curve must be as uniform
as possible.
• Devoid of unintended flat regions, and flattening/bulging tendencies.
• The deviation from offset points should be minimal, i.e. within the
boundaries defined by the designer.

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Why fairing is needed.

• An initial hull is traditionally drawn in 1/100 scale to fit in the drawing sheet.
Can also be drawn in other scales such as 1/10, 1/50 or 1/200 depending on the
actual length of the ship being designed.

• The ‘Offsets’, generally at 10 stations, are lifted from this preliminary

Lines Plan for calculating Capacity, Displacement, Stability,
Propulsion characteristics etc., which gives sufficient accuracy
at the preliminary design stage.

• This preliminary Lines Plan and Offset Tables containing half breadths
at water lines, heights of deck, the bow and stern profile etc. are used
for making models for using in Propulsion tests in Testing Tanks.

• The Tests carried out indicate any necessary local changes in the hull shape,
specifically in the forward and the aft regions of the hull, and accordingly the
lines plan is modified. This plan would also be in 1/50 or 1/100 scale etc.

• This small scale plan has now to be drawn to full scale(1/1), which means
any inaccuracy in measurement would get magnified 50 times or 100 times
or 200 times as the case may be.

* A deviation of 0.3 mm in any of the values of the Offset Tables will get
magnified to a deviation of 15 mm or 30 mm or 60 mm as per the enlargement
of the plan to full scale. The human eye can rarely differentiate below 0.3 mm
and therefore such deviations often happen.

.Fairing of the lines is therefore required for two reasons:

• The unfairness that creeps in while measuring the Offsets from a small scale
drawing and then using these inaccurate measurements for drawing the
 full scale lines on the mould loft scrieve-board.

• The changes that are

made to the preliminary
lines after carrying out
the propulsion tests
with models in the
testing tank.

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How Faring is carried

out !

The Traditional full

scale method.

• Fairing lines for a new

ship design is normally
accomplished at least
twice
-first in the design phase
(in small scale), and
second in the
construction
phase ( in full scale). In
the design phase, there is
greater freedom to make
changes and to achieve
hull form features which
the designer favours.
Curves are usually
drawn using a
combination of free hand
sketching,
using ship curves and
flexible battens (or
splines) held by batten
weights ("ducks").

In the construction
phase, the Line Plan in
1/1 scale is chalked in on
the
mould loft floor
( scrieve-board). The
profile and the body plan
are generally
laid-off on the same base
line so that the several
water lines from keel to
upper
deck level intersect the
bow and stern lines and
cross the body plan as
well.
The half breadth plan is
also drawn
superimposed.

The curved hull lines are

drawn, following the
Offset points marked on
the waterlines etc., using
long wooden battens
(also called ‘splines’)
which are held in place
by steel weights ( also
called ‘ducks’).
The splines, due to
their natural resistance to
bending, bend normally
in a fair curve. The
splines should not be
forced beyond their
normal flexibility. Some
of the Offset points may
be missed due to this.
This process of
finding the most suitable
curved line passing
through most of the set
of points, which will also
be finally correct when
checked against the body
plan section lines, the
half-breadth plan water
lines and the Profile plan
buttock lines, is the
actual process of fairing.
 The process of
fairing a set of lines is
invariably an iterative, or
cut and try one, requiring
patience and
perseverance. It consists
essentially of
investigating the fairness
or suitability of each line
of the vessel in
succession. It often
happens that, after
testing and accepting a
number of lines, the next
line to be considered will
require changes to be
made to it that will be so
far-reaching as to affect
some of the lines
previously accepted. It
then becomes necessary
to make whatever
changes seems best, all
things considered, and to
proceed anew through
the same fairing steps as
before. Usually several
such difficulties have to
be overcome
successively before the
whole fairing process is
completed.
The final lines
should not deviate too
much from the original
offsets.

Once fairing is
completed, the lines are
hard scribed by pointed
steel scribers.
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The Mould Loft

Making wooden Templates
The 1/10 scale method.
(Optical loft).

• The process of
fairing is essentially the
same as done in the full
scale lofting, except that
the Lines are drawn in
1/10 scale very
accurately with very thin
lines.

• The Plans are

drawn on special paper
which does not change
size over the range of
working room
temperatures. The
Optical loft
(essentially a drawing
office) is air conditioned
to control the room
temperature within close
limits.

• The lines are drawn

while viewing through
large magnifying glasses
which help the draughts
men to draw very
accurately. Thus when
the drawings are used for
actual cutting of plates to
full size, the scale
conversion does not
introduce unacceptable
deviations.

The scale conversion

during manufacture is
carried out by:

• Optical projection
of the drawing,
magnifying 10 times, on
to the material to be cut
 and then manual
marking following the
projected lines. Or

• Photo-electric
tracers of the flame
cutting machines, which
follow along the drawn
boundaries of the
structural parts and the
cutting torch of the
machine automatically
cuts to 10 times the
drawing dimensions.

This method of optical

lofting is not used any
more after the advent of
CAD / CAM.
(The above details have
been explained for
historical interest only).

Computer aided fairing.

• Ships’ Lines – The

mathematical curves:

The 3-dimensional ship hull

fairing problem is
generally reduced to the
fairing of 2-dimensional
ship hull design curves,
namely sections,
waterlines and buttocks.
The main reason behind
this is the complexity of
the 3-D fairing problem.
Indeed, most of the
existing surface fairing
methodologies either
borrow or adapt ideas
from 2-D curve fairing.
Bezier curves are a form of
curves which are
associated with Control
Points.
The Curve can be
manipulated by shifting
the control points.

Parallel shifting of a
curve
Changing the shape of
the curve

Most CAD / CAM

applications use
NURB (Non Uniform
Rationalised
B-Spline) curves for
surface definition.

A Free-form surface
in space can be defined
by a mesh of NURB
curves. Fairing the
surface of a ship’s hull
can be achieved by
fairing a combination
of planer curves – the
sections, water lines
and buttock lines.

The fairing of the

ship’s lines is carried
by computer
programmes either
interactively or by an
automated process.

In the Interactive
process of fairing, the
person at the console
can visually assess if a
curve or a surface
looks fair and can
manipulate the shape
of the curve or the
surface locally by
either input of
additional offsets, or
by actual manipulation
of the control points or
the node vectors of the
curves. The
programme helps
along by changing the
mathematical curve
locally to produce a
better fitting fair curve
or surface.

In the automated
process the computer
programme uses
algorithms to
progressively carry out
the shifting or re-
shaping of the curves
progressively and
iteratively till some pre
defined termination
conditions are met.

The extent of success

in producing the fair
curves will depend on
the initial curve
definition, the
algorithm, the
objective functions
chosen, step size and
the termination criteria.
The programme has to
adhere to the geometric
and performance
constraints.
 An example of such
programme is shown
below.

It must be remembered
that in spite of
considerable advances
in CAD / CAM
packages, still
difficulties are faced in
fairing some parts of
the hull surfaces,
especially near bulbous
bow intersection,
intersections of stern
boss, hard shoulders
etc. For these areas
manual full scale
fairing still have to be
resorted to.
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