The largest issue is America’s poor craftsmanship and weak industrial base, resulting in US ships costing 4-6 times that of international vessels. High costs for repairs and replacements force US ships to serve longer years, which further jeopardize safety and efficiency of US vessels at sea. Before prices drop, enlarged workforce won’t do much help either.
Large projects such as shipbuilding are not industries that just prosper with trade protection and tariffs. You need to keep your ships cost-efficient and well designed to promise quality at a low price, or else demand will stay ever low. Once the world’s greatest industrial hegemon, the US did not ‘forget’ how to build ships, but rather fell behind in the innovation of hulls due to decades of neglect. The advantage of Chinese shipbuilding comes from precise manufacturing and optimal design, on par with a coordinated chain of production to support maritime R&D, such as ship designs based on the usage of pressure measuring tools. These paved the way to China’s robust and expanding shipbuilding industry. This is more important than the number of factories and docks you possess.
Therefore, if the US wishes to restore its maritime prowess, it will have to catch up with global shipbuilding technology, which means that a renovation in maritime research should come before controversial trade policies.
So what instruments and methods contribute to effective maritime research? An indispensable phase is the measurement of pressure fields affecting the vessel hull, chiefly using pressure scanners and multi-hole probes.
When researching the efficiency, performance and reliability of vessels, multiple pressure scanners distributed along the hull of the vessel simultaneously measure the pressure readings of the hull, integrating the fluid flow acting on the vessel into a generalized, visable system. Based on this valuable visualization of the pressure forces across the structure, multi-hole scanners can then traverse the fluid field in detail and operate point-to-point measurements to reveal how the components of the hull can be improved. This is key information that is used to optimize the structure and shape of the hull, leading to cost-efficient and competitive ship design.
Pressure scanners and multi-hole probes play complementary roles in the reserach of transportation, ranging from ships to race cars and aircraft. Essential in the process of pressure measurement is the accuracy, reliability and efficiency of the pressure scanner used. The application of better instruments benefits the quality of the database, which help significantly reduce the fuel consumption and other costs in production and usage.
Windtuner excels in the field of fluid pressure measurement, especially in air fluid environments. It provides a complete set of flow field measurement and control solutions in aerospace, automotive engineering, turbine machinery, marine power, wind energy and other fields. The Windtuner Ethernet Intelligent Pressure Scanners is a high-performance and high-precision pressure acquisition device, specifically designed for aero engines, gas turbines, and wind tunnel experiments. It is equipped with 16 channels to gather atmospheric pressure and temperature.
Windtuner also takes pride in its probe manufacturing, having produced thousands of wind-tunnel-proven customized probes for designated usages. For example the Windtuner five-hole probe can give immediate and accurate data in a three-dimensional fluid field. It is capable of measuring complex fluid fields and operating at high incidence angles. This compact device contains an unique AI compensation algorithm that monitors the temperature shift in the environment, eliminating the influence of temperature changes on the sensor to the greatest extent, ensuring more accurate measurement of the airflow pressure. Windtuner can customize its probes to contain multiple functional components such as the total pressure hole, static pressure hole, heater, drainage hole, temperature sensor, pressure sensor and atmospheric temperature sensor, according to customer requirement. Through the professional contribution of pressure measurement manufacturers like Windtuner, a maritime industry is maintained healthy and competitive.
