Professional paper

FIELD TESTING OF BASE LAUNCHING GREASE AT SHIPYARDS

Dragan Škrobonja
Josip Malnar

Abstract

Abstract
For a successful launching of ships at shipyards, while preparing the ground way, a good quality base launching grease is necessary to prepare the rail before launching the ship into the sea. The grease’s basic role is to even the slipway surface, take over the ship transportation and provide elasticity to the hull cradle and sliding ways surfaces. The placing of launching grease between friction surfaces reduces friction and enables successful launching of the ship along the slipway until it is launched into the sea. The importance of the quality of grease, as well as of a correct procedure of its application onto the surface, taking into consideration the conditions under which the procedure is performed, are highly significant and fundamental for a successful ship launching. Not strictly abiding by the recommendations of the base launching grease manufacturer, as well as those by experienced shipyard experts, may cause problems at ship launching, especially today, when the load of dry sliding ways increases rapidly due to growingly large ships. The most recent ships built in Croatian shipyards, with loads of up to 50 tons per square meter on the slipway, came as an incentive to the local base launching grease manufacturer to perform field tests involving procedures of using and treating base launching grease at shipyards.
The present paper provides an insight into various operations while applying base launching grease at shipyards, as well as into changes observed and measured when applying the grease under different climatic conditions. It furtherly provides the results of monitoring the physico-chemical properties of the grease, and finally, in the conclusions, attempts to point out the important properties in the utilization and handling of base launching grease.

Keywords

shipyard slipway launching grease; slip coat for ship launching; rheological properties of lubricanting grease; condiotion monitoring; condition based maintenance; regeneration for repeated use

Hrčak ID:

6614

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/6614

Publication date:

30.12.2005.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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