Cracks plague Ticonderoga-class cruisers (all 22 of them)

[unhappycamper]

unhappycamper note: Since the ‘Pentagon’ (DoD? Gannett?) has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.
To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.

Read all about Fair Use here. It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.

unhappycamper summary of this article: :(





The Navy cruiser Port Royal being refloated at Pearl Harbor in September 2009 after repairs from a grounding. The ship is back in the shipyard because of a new series of cracks in its superstructure.


Cracks plague Ticonderoga-class cruisers
By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Dec 9, 2010 21:44:09 EST

Barely a year after the Navy spent $40 million to fix the cruiser Port Royal after an embarrassing grounding, the ship is again out of action, back in a shipyard at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. But this time it’s not a damaged hull that’s the problem. Rather, it’s an issue that is plaguing all 22 cruisers in service: cracks in the aluminum superstructure.

[xor]

1. I read that as the drug at first... Not sure which would be worse..

Anyway, the companies who designed and built these ships should be held liable for this... Instead, I'm sure they'll get some nice contracts to fix their poor design. No doubt shit happens, but when shit happens, the people who caused the shit should be the ones o clean it up.

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Just like any Automotive Recall

is handled.

It should cost the contractors not the taxpayers.

[Angleae]

13. Just how many 16 year old cars are recalled by the manufacturer?

That's how old the newest Ticonderoga is.

[Ichingcarpenter]

15. 16 new ships the welding doesn't work

You are now my friend.

[xchrom]

2. The Incompetent Age. Nt

[DainBramaged]

3. Were the plates outsourced????

Great quality control. Where did they get the ingots from, 'pure' recycled Pepsi cans?

[Recursion]

6. US shipyards have to us US-produced materials

for DoD shipbuilding contracts. They may have been "outsourced" in the sense that a US contractor fabricated the plates rather than the shipyard itself.

[madrchsod]

5. no problem! just buy a few drums of....

this will fix the problem in no time at all!


did anyone tell the navy you can`t weld aluminum and that it is prone to cracking?

[Recursion]

7. Loctite has a naval adhesive

That stuff will bond to anything, including a bosuns mate's hand...

[hootinholler]

8. Actually you can weld aluminum

It's just very tricky and involves flooding the weld with gasses while hot. An yes, it can be prone to fatigue cracking under vibration.

J-B has some great products though :thumbsup: I like JB-80 "twice as good as 40" lol.

-Hoot

[madrchsod]

9. what the hell was i thinking!

i worked right next to a aluminum tanker assembly line and put sub assemblies on them. dam i`m getting old!

[Kaleva]

10. Nothing unusual. Same problem with the OHP class FFG. Navy years ago went back to steel .

[Bigmack]

11. The only thing I heard about the steel..

replacement superstructures make them heavier topside. With the lighter, stronger powerplants installed, that weight topside is dangerous.

What do you know specifically about that problem?

[Kaleva]

12. Well, you can't replace an aluminum superstructure with a steel one.

One reason you mentioned and the other is that the cost would be so great, might as well build a new ship. This will be an on going problem with the Ticos and OHPs until they are retired. The newer Burke class DDG has a steel superstructure.

On the USS Clifton Sprague FFG-16, I well remember the cracks in the bulkheads of the Stir Equipment Room whic contained part of the MK 92 FCS that I worked on was located. The shipyard had to weld reinforcing plates over the crack.

[haele]

14. It's the superstructure design that does this.

Since 1990, cracks in the superstructure at the module welds has always been a problem. The Aegis cruisers ended up top-heavy due to support the implanted design of the radars, far more so than the average Naval ship. Thus, a lot of aluminum in the ship to keep the weight down to a manageable tonnage for the ship's size. Large constructs of aluminum closer to the waterline or set in the lower area of the superstructures (helo deck, launcher decks, etc) that would normally be steel in ships of that size will weather, turn brittle, and crack much quicker than steel does, and is far less forgiving when it comes to repairing it.
A crack in a steel deck will weld repair to the same strength and wear-ability as the original build, no matter what age or condition the surrounding steel is. Aluminum - well, in my experience with dealing in external foundations, most times if you're repairing a section, you have to take out a whole section and figure out where to weld to the old aluminum and hope to hell that the older section hasn't weathered it's way out of the original grade and the newer plate is an exact grade match to the older plate was - no matter what the yard told you the grade of the plate was, there's always a risk of contaminated or mis-graded aluminum. It's not so bad when you're dealing with lots that are only five years apart or so, but a ten - twelve year difference?
And you also hope that your marine welder knows his/her stuff and the inspector knows what they are doing with the test equipment.
Aluminum sucks to work with when you're dealing with an older vessel. Our crew ended up waiting out three different re-build efforts to replace an interior aluminum water-tight door/hatch frame after a firemain break flooded out an electronics space we were doing an installation in. The 20 year old aluminum just wouldn't support the new welds, and they ended up replacing 25 ft of bulkhead and all the fittings to ensure that the normal flexing of the ship at sea wouldn't crack either the hatch or the bulkhead.

Doesn't surprise me one bit. Aluminum weathers, crystallizes and cracks.

Haele

[L0oniX]

16. Since they started drug testing everything has gone to hell.