3351. Scale Weighing The Improved Navy Lighterage System Modules
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Paper
Abstract
Marinette Marine is one of four shipyards owned by the Manitowoc Corporation, all of which are located on the Great Lakes in the United States. One of the contracts currently under construction at MMC is the ?Improved Navy Lighterage System? (INLS) built for the United States Navy. This program consists of a total of twenty-nine modules, of seven similar but different designs. Future options on the contract would add 270 more. These modules are roughly 80 feet [24,4m] long, 24 feet [7,3m] wide and 8 feet [2,4m] deep, and when linked together, will form a platform for deeper draft vessels to offload to a beachhead.
All of the new modules are required to be scale weighed using at least a two point lifting arrangement to obtain not only the weight, but the Longitudinal Center of Gravity (LCG) about the vessels? midperpendicular. This information is critical for the deployment of the modules from prepositioning ships.
Due to the variances in the designs of the different modules, the calculated weights range from 154600 Lbs. [70125 Kg] to 257600 Lbs. [116845 Kg].
In principal, weighing these units and calculating their LCG?s sounds easy. Initially, it was envisioned to utilize crane mounted ?scales?; ones the operators use to determine safe crane loading to weigh the INLS modules. In order to calculate the LCS for each module, at least a two point lifting arrangement would have to be used. Fortunately, these modules are designed to be off-loaded by larger ships, and have lift fittings incorporated in their structure.
With the variety of module designs, each had to be looked at to see how they would be weighed.
