Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) began its research activities from 1984 by establishing a development team under the design department. This team was registered at the Ministry of Science and Technology as a Research Institute affiliated with SHI in April 1986. In 2004, the institute was divided into two distinct research groups to strengthen the R&D capabilities by groups of a performance technology and of a production technology.
The research institute plays a leading role in developing key technologies for higher value-added ships and offshore facilities/products. The research institute puts its utmost efforts on continuous R&D activities to achieve the highest levels of quality and efficiency for SHI's prudent customers.
In addition, the institute endeavors to provide the best research environment for its researchers, and to expand investments for R&D facilities as well as for the human resources.
Samsung Ship Model Basin(SSMB) has one of the world's largest commercial towing tank, which focuses on improving the ship performance and developing new ships.
The tank is 400 meters in length, 14 meters in width, and 7 meters in depth. It has two main towing carriages driven by linear induction motors with low noise and vibration. One carriage has a maximum speed of 18m/s for high-speed ships and the other has a maximum speed of 5m/s for ordinary ships.
In addition, it has a sub-carriage connected by the main carriages for a large amplitude circular motion test. Also, a wave maker that is composed of 40 independent plunger units can simulate the real operation state of ocean vessels.
A variety of model test is being carried out in the towing tank, which includes: resistance, self propulsion, propeller open water, maneuvering, and seakeeping test, flow visualization, and local flow measurement etc. SSMB towing tank has successfully carried out rigorous model tests of more than 300 vessels having conventional and special propulsion systems, appendages, and additional devices for improving performance. These research activities thus enable the development of safe and comfortable ocean vessels having superior hydrodynamic performances in actual sea conditions.
Base on these efforts, Samsung Heavy Industries always comply with customers' requests utilizing continuously advancing SSMB's Test and Evaluation technologies.
Samsung Heavy Industries constructed a large low-noise cavitation tunnel by its own technology in 1996, which was placed in SSMB as one of the world's largest commercial cavitation tunnel.
This cavitation tunnel has two different test sections, in which the No. 1 section is 6 meters in length, 1.2 meters in width and in depth that enables high-speed model tests through generating the tunnel flow speed up to 28 meters per second. The No. 2 section is 12 meters in length, 3 meters in width and 1.4 meters in depth that can accommodate the maximum of 10m-length entire model ship, and an impeller facilitates the circulation of 650 tons of water inside the tunnel at a speed of 12 meters per second.
SSMB's world class large cavitation tunnel (Samsung Cavitation Tunnel, SCAT) enables cost effective and accurate prediction of cavitation performance such as inception speed, cavitation extent, propeller induced hull pressure fluctuation and rudder cavitation with full model ship which simulating the most reliable wake field. Valuable tools for flow field measurement and visualization allow sophisticated research regarding flow field around vehicles with complicated arrangement.
SCAT is continuously accumulating world-class water tank testing technology, and performes model tests on more than 400 propellers including recent research field of the underwater noise of surface combat vessels or submarines.
To carry out the most accurate model tests in both the towing tank and the cavitation tunnel, the precision of the ship and propeller model manufacturing is essential.
To achieve this, a model ship up to 10 meters in length and a model propeller up to 0.3 meters in diameter can be manufactured utilizing a high-precision 10-axis CNC machine that consists of two 5-axis manufacturing heads and a 5-axis CNC machine respectively in full automation.
SSMB is also making efforts to develop further advanced manufacturing technologies in order to meet the rapid changing ship technologies with complicated shapes of ship models.
Institute of industrial technology,Samsung Heavy Industries, is certified as international testing laboratory accredited by KOLAS, since 1999. The Korea Laboratory Accreditation Scheme(KOLAS) is the governmental accreditation body established on December 8, 1992 and administered by the Korean Agency of Technology and Standards(KATS). KOLAS evaluates the technical competence of testing laboratories based on the general requirements of ISO/IEC 17025. Laboratories that demonstrate competence and meet the requirements of KOLAS are granted accreditation. Laboratories accredited by KOLAS are allowed to use the accreditation logo and ILAC(International laboratory accreditation cooperation) logo on their test reports for those tests in its scope of accreditation. This means that the testing report issued by accredited laboratory is widely accepted all of the world without any re-testing. Samsung heavy industries is accredited in mechanical testing and chemical composition testing.