Watertight work

Corus Process Engineering (

) has been awarded a contract from

to manufacture long-lead-time equipment for use on the Astute-class submarine Boat Number 5.

The contract involves the manufacture of watertight doors, including all associated locking/interlocking mechanisms; tunnel door and shielding plug arrangement; tunnel hatch; re-fuelling plugs; and other blanking plugs and inserts.

The watertight doors will be manufactured at CPE’s Workshops in Workington, Cumbria. The doors and other equipment will be delivered in stages, starting in January 2009 and running through to February 2010.

This contract follows similar contracts for the supply of equipment to Astute-class submarines boat numbers 1 to 4. Equipment for boats 1 to 3 has already been delivered, with equipment for Boat 4 currently progressing through CPE’s workshops.

Vaughan Wilson, project manager at CPE, said: ‘CPE has already carried out numerous contracts for similar work on the Astute-class submarines, including watertight doors, torpedo tubes and re-fuelling plugs.

‘The watertight doors in themselves are very complex items. Some of the items require special materials, heat treatment or need to be fabricated, so it all involves a lot of engineering skills and technical know-how.

‘There’s a lot of complex welding required on the project. We use a range of different welding techniques on the doors, including MIG, TIG and flux-cored arc welding, either manually or automatic.’