Nippon Steel, Imabari Shipbuilding Develop Safety Ship with New Steel

Nippon Steel and Imabari Shipbuilding announced on Tuesday they developed new ship with better crash safety. Nippon Steel developed world first structural steel with better deformability, NS-Ship-Safety 235. They developed ship with bulbous bow using the new steel. Imabari Shipbuilding launches a 47,000 dead weight ton of tanker with the safety bow in 2010 and will launch other ship with the safety system.

Nippon Steel got approval from American Bureau of Shipbuilding (ABS) in December 2008 and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai in August 2009. The steel product has property with less hardening in deforming and 1.5-2 times higher ductility than existing steel products. The safety bow absorbs energy from the crash to save the impact.

Nippon Steel developed the new steel by increasing the purity and making single ferrite constitution along with optimum heat treatment. The yield point is 235 Newton per square millimeter as existing shipbuilding plate while the tensile strength is 340N per square mm for better formability, which is lower than 400N of existing plate.

They entered into joint development for shipbuilding since around 5 years ago mainly for environmental action and safety. Crash represents more than half of ocean accidents. The safety bow can reduce the impact to improve the safety.