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The USS Texas going to dry dock!

blister is almost done on the starboard side.

starboard blistor.jpg


not started on the port yet

port blister.jpg
 
sdmuleman said:
They are nailed down. The basic building blocks are concrete on with layers of oak attached by cast in anchor bolts. These stay in place by their own weight. On top of these a cap is built up of wood to the required height and shape. At least some of the cap is softwood to allow it to crush under load and conform the bottom of the ship.
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some also contain the top layer filled with sand.
they can remove the sand by knocking the side open and work on an area, then replace as needed.

block.jpg
 
USS Texas escorting an Altantic convoy in 1942. Pretty sure German surface units were not going to mess with that convoy.

_nc_ohc=GRpOMFGamGQAX-8gChZ&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.jpg
 
Clearance under that bridge was for many year a significant design limitation on USN warships. Retractable topmasts were used in many earlier large ships.

EumPl9oXUAA0G4w?format=jpg&name=900x900.jpg

USS_Texas-2.jpg



Later ships required even more ingenious solutions. One of the reasons why NY NSY was one of the first naval shipyards closed.

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I still wish they would just dry dock it at the museum location, that way people can see how intense the structure really is. But I get how it needs water to support all the weight.
 
Problem with dry berthing or docking her is economic. Ship itself can survive docking just fine - witness her being currently docked. The real problem is that building a graving dock that size is a billion dollar project, with considerable ongoing maintenance cost. For smaller ships it's possible to find old unusable docks (i.e. HMS Victory) or build a berth (Albacore). Much harder with a big ship.

From a structural perspective, docking entails significant local loads, but the ship is designed for it. Once safely docked, the ship is stable and should be structurally able to stay there indefinitely (assuming dock is structurally stable itself). Wood ships have issues with long term docking, but not steel. This is the result of creep - deformation under extended low load. Steel doesn't suffer this. Wood is also far weaker structurally, which is why it is only with iron shipbuilding that large ships were practical. A wooden ship is generally designed with a pretty even distribution of weight and buoyancy, which results in minimal static stress overall. I.e. each section of ship largely supports itself. That changes with steel - concentrated loads from boilers, engines, armor, gun turrets, etc. and finer hull forms (for speed) result in significant structural loads. In the big ocean liners for instance, stresses of several tons/sq inch are normal just sitting there. Docking eliminates this stress, so you actually have lower overall loads when docked.
 
sdmuleman said:
Problem with dry berthing or docking her is economic. Ship itself can survive docking just fine - witness her being currently docked. The real problem is that building a graving dock that size is a billion dollar project, with considerable ongoing maintenance cost. For smaller ships it's possible to find old unusable docks (i.e. HMS Victory) or build a berth (Albacore). Much harder with a big ship.

From a structural perspective, docking entails significant local loads, but the ship is designed for it. Once safely docked, the ship is stable and should be structurally able to stay there indefinitely (assuming dock is structurally stable itself). Wood ships have issues with long term docking, but not steel. This is the result of creep - deformation under extended low load. Steel doesn't suffer this. Wood is also far weaker structurally, which is why it is only with iron shipbuilding that large ships were practical. A wooden ship is generally designed with a pretty even distribution of weight and buoyancy, which results in minimal static stress overall. I.e. each section of ship largely supports itself. That changes with steel - concentrated loads from boilers, engines, armor, gun turrets, etc. and finer hull forms (for speed) result in significant structural loads. In the big ocean liners for instance, stresses of several tons/sq inch are normal just sitting there. Docking eliminates this stress, so you actually have lower overall loads when docked.
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My idea would be to basically flood it higher then float into place then pump the water out. Then fill the fort back in next to where it was dig out. They could do it where it currently sat just making the canal cut a little longer.
 
Kyle said:
My idea would be to basically flood it higher then float into place then pump the water out. Then fill the fort back in next to where it was dig out. They could do it where it currently sat just making the canal cut a little longer.
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I think I said it earlier in the thread, but that’s how they got the submarine next to the USS Alabama parked where it is now.
 
She was originally slimmer. The torpedo blisters were added in her 1926 modernization, along with oil fired boilers, anti-aircraft guns, tripod masts, and upgraded fire controls.

1914.jpg
 
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