Abstract
Cold forming of sections is an integral part of shipbuilding. It has been observed that on an average 2.8% of hull steel weight is accounted for by curvilinear welded T sections. The application of cold forming for deep T section is still very much limited due to lack of, amongst other things, proper theoretical analysis of this production problem. Cold forming of such sections might lead to web/flange weld failure, instability of web, roofing of face plate and reduction in thickness of the web edge. A detailed analysis of all these factors has been carried out to establish a sound basis for this production problem.
This simulation approach can be used either to predict the behavior of welded T sections undergoing cold forming or it can be used at the design stage as a design tool so that the required bent shape can be successfully achieved by cold forming. Full scale tests have been carried out and a good agreement between the computed and the test data has been observed.