[spinnor]

I saw a movie for free on YouTube, "Away All Boats",

https://youtu.be/y5Z7vIPD3to

At minute 4:44 an old timer puts his ear to the hull of a recently built welded steel ship (1943 or 1944) and listens to "her" talking. An ex ship captain explains to the old timer that the sound he hears are the sounds of built up stresses from welding slowly being released in the newly constructed ship.

Did Hollywood make that up or did newly built ships from WWII actually make sounds you could hear from stresses being released? Have you ever heard such sound in large steel fabrications that were no longer hot but at "room" temperature from stress being released?

Thanks for your help!

[homeboy]

From the year of the movie and the title I am assuming this is a war movie. A long time ago I read an article about problems with ships breaking in half due to deficiencies in the steel and the welding. Did some Googling and found a site that may pertain to your movie.---- brittle fracture of liberty ships ----. There are several other links on this site that may satisfy your curiosity. I am just curious if the captain and crew had on life jackets at all times because if this was a Liberty ship they might need them real quick. Luckily most of these ships and crews did a great job to help put us where we are to-day. Good luck

[Keith_J]

The issue with Liberty Ships was from the Bessemer Steel used making welds temperature sensitive in freezing weather. Welding was far quicker than riveting plus more stream lined and such. So war time expediency and such prevailed. But this was SMAW so stresses were more confined to deposit length dictated by rod length. Root gap allowance and such.

Back to Bessemer steel. Air is used to burn excess carbon from the molten pig iron. With air having 78% nitrogen, this would form nitrides that made the steel brittle at near arctic temps.

[Keith_J]

Modern steels use basic oxygen when made from molten pig iron. With only pure oxygen burning the carbon, no nitrides can form so brittle transition can be as low as -40°C (or F as that is the one point they are the same) .
Much domestic steel is recycled, using electric arc melt with basic oxygen refinement to burn out the Cr, C, Ni, Al and junk. Then Si, Al and other intentional elements are added. I've toured a few mills, including Nucor.

[PeteM]

I've built barges for a couple of years, a couple of years ago. There were no steps taken to relieve stresses at any point in the process. For a while, the amp meter on the sub arc system for seaming the keel plates was way out of calibration and we were getting plates that looked like wings. The solution was to crank them down using the weight of the flanges first, then screw them down using a clamp that attached to a stud, so there was tons of stress just in the keel plates (and everything else.)

They do make all kinds of noises when put in the water. Part of it is the locked up stresses, and part is because it is subject to a good deal of motion. Squeaks and groans echo through out the hull as it rises and tilts in the water. They must flex a little due to their shape, size and weight. It is a little spooky to be inside the rake or other spaces inside the hull. Doing a bunch of overhead welding in them when the river is really busy will leave you all wobbly when you try walking on solid ground too.

[Olivero]

I've built barges for a couple of years, a couple of years ago. There were no steps taken to relieve stresses at any point in the process. For a while, the amp meter on the sub arc system for seaming the keel plates was way out of calibration and we were getting plates that looked like wings. The solution was to crank them down using the weight of the flanges first, then screw them down using a clamp that attached to a stud, so there was tons of stress just in the keel plates (and everything else.)

They do make all kinds of noises when put in the water. Part of it is the locked up stresses, and part is because it is subject to a good deal of motion. Squeaks and groans echo through out the hull as it rises and tilts in the water. They must flex a little due to their shape, size and weight. It is a little spooky to be inside the rake or other spaces inside the hull. Doing a bunch of overhead welding in them when the river is really busy will leave you all wobbly when you try walking on solid ground too.

I have to admit it sounds kind of fun though

[PeteM]

I've built barges for a couple of years, a couple of years ago. There were no steps taken to relieve stresses at any point in the process. For a while, the amp meter on the sub arc system for seaming the keel plates was way out of calibration and we were getting plates that looked like wings. The solution was to crank them down using the weight of the flanges first, then screw them down using a clamp that attached to a stud, so there was tons of stress just in the keel plates (and everything else.)

They do make all kinds of noises when put in the water. Part of it is the locked up stresses, and part is because it is subject to a good deal of motion. Squeaks and groans echo through out the hull as it rises and tilts in the water. They must flex a little due to their shape, size and weight. It is a little spooky to be inside the rake or other spaces inside the hull. Doing a bunch of overhead welding in them when the river is really busy will leave you all wobbly when you try walking on solid ground too.

I have to admit it sounds kind of fun though

Yeah, lots of good times. Reconditioning them was actually a lot of fun. We'd replace the boundary angle between the wall and floors inside the hoppers and have hundreds of feet of just welding. Dual shield on the wall and 6010 on the floor, just putting the hood down, turning the tunes up and cruising along the joint for a couple of days. Actually, it's quite relaxing.

[spinnor]

Thank you the replies. The part in the movie about the locked up stresses making sounds you could hear did not seem like the kind of thing that was made up, though Hollywood makes up all kinds of stuff.

Love to spend a week around a ship-yard trying to pick up on the art of large ship building.