FORAN users benefit from 2010 forum In-depth | CAD/CAM


SENER Ingeniera y Sistemas SA hosted the FORAN users meeting (FORUM) earlier this year, highlighting the latest developments of its CAD/ CAM soſtware and the experience from users. Eric Tupper reports.


hosts a FORAN Users Meeting (FORUM) every other year and the sixth, FORUM took place in Seville on 13 and 14 May. Delegates were welcomed by Luis Garcia,


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general manager, marine business unit, SENER, who hosted the event. Ten Jorge Sendagorta, president of SENER, gave the opening address. To get the full benefits of the system required a long term commitment on both supplier and user. FORAN has been developing now for some 40 years and has become more international. It benefits from cross fertilisation of ideas between the various disciplines in SENER and the feed back from users. Next, José Esteban Pérez, President of the


Spanish Association of Naval Architects, spoke on Te sea: technology and well-being. He said that ships were important to world civilisation for navigation, commerce and exploitation of natural resources. Te international financial crisis has led to a downturn in newbuild contracts although deliveries have risen because of earlier orders. In terms of order book tonnage, China now ranks first in the world. He spoke of the rise in fuel prices and the need to adapt operational methods. His message for all naval architects was the importance of good technology for the future. Alfonso Olmos of Navantia, presented Use


of FBUILDS for automatically generating bill of materials (BOM) of fabrication drawings. Having outlined the facilities and work of Navantia, he described the S80, a new submarine design for which FORAN V60r2.0 is the only CAD/CAM soſtware to be used. Progress on the project is such that the 3D model is 80% complete fabrication drawings 40% complete and building 30%. A big advantage of using a CAD/CAM


system based on a relational data base is the ability to retrieve data in specific forms. One such is the BOM report used to purchase material and initiate work orders


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n order to strengthen its links with clients, and ensure new developments are relevant to the industry’s needs, SENER


for controlling progress in construction. Te BOM is related to a specific fabrication drawing and the link between CAD components and drawings is not always maintained by the soſtware. It also depends on the drawing content, purchasing policies, build strategy and the associated IT systems. He argued that the FBUILDS module is flexible enough to take all these factors into account and demonstrated this in terms of the S80 project. Tere followed a talk by David Campbell


of Babcock Marine on the Queen Elizabeth Class (QEC) aircraft carrier project, aſter explaining the organisation of, and typical work done by, the Babcock Marine Division, including the design conversion of a bulk carrier to a pipe laying ship. Te QEC is a 65.600tonnes aircraſt carrier. Two ships are scheduled with delivery dates of 2015 and 2018. Babcock has more than 100 users working


on FORAN these uses include design, modelling, planning, dimension control and weights. Modelling teams include hull structure, seats, weapon systems, pipelines, cable trays, furniture and lights. Te QEC is a complex project made more complex by the number of sites involved in fabricating units which will be finally assembled in Rosyth, Scotland. It poses many challenges and FORAN is to be used in conjunction with TRIBON and AUTOCAD with Windchill PDM as the information “backbone”. Virginia Marcos of SENER reviewed


FVIEWER which is a new approach to the 3D virtual reality tool. Such tools have been in FORAN since 1997 when they were released as part of v30. Te early system had a number of limitations such as inability to handle huge models, the user interface and the handling of annotations. Advances in soſtware and hardware since then have made it necessary to replace the module rather than continue to upgrade it. Tis has resulted in FVIEWER which will be available in v70r1.0. Tis will be a 64bit system able to handle a huge amount of geometric data, based on a


hierarchical structure, with a smaller memory footprint and an ability to use more than 4GB of RAM. It includes new features such as clipping planes, overview map and advanced search tools. Enhancements are provided in the areas of lighting, dismantling spaces, annotations, textures, operators and detection of interferences. Future developments envisaged include a 3D mouse, 3D displays and a tactile screen. Jim McLauchlan, Engineering Systems


Manager, BAe Systems, described the use of FORAN V60r2.0 in BAe’s business system and manufacturing facilities. They have some 250 general licences and over 300 users interact with FORAN. Work has been done in-house to rationalise the interfaces with other CAD/CAM systems. One challenging interface was that with the robotic bar cutting machine. Gregorio Galán, Ghenova ingenieria,


presented Process continuous improvement: feedback from engineering. A lot of effort goes into creating the 3D model of a ship and with a little additional effort FORAN enables engineers to gather data which would allow shipyards to improve efficiency. He exampled the percentage scrap plating and data showing how this, and associated cost, varies with a ship’s block coefficient – 16% at CB of 0.5 to 5% at CB of 1.0. It was found that the number of parts in the main steel structure increased with increasing length x beam x depth and that the cutting length in metres was about three times the number of parts. He went on to show how data on pipes


– length, diameter, whether straight or not – can be extracted. Having fewer, longer, pipes would reduce costs. By extracting such data from the model management has information to guide them in improving cost effectiveness. Carlos Malheiros Santos of the Brazilian


Navy said that whilst much effort was put into creating 3D product models in design the data is seldom used beyond the production stage. He discussed the use of the model data in the maintenance and operation of ships


The Naval Architect July/August 2010


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