By Carlo Munoz
Navy officials looking into an incident in which cracking developed on portions of the Lockheed Martin [LMT]-version of the Littoral Combat Ship have ruled out design flaws as a cause, according to a senior company official.
Program officials were notified by Naval Sea Systems Command “a couple of weeks” ago that the LCS design of the Lockheed Martin variant was not to blame for the cracks, Joe North, vice president of the company’s Littoral Ship Systems, said during an April 8 briefing with reporters at the company’s offices in Arlington, Va. Navy review of structural cracks on the USS Freedom (LCS-1) is still under review, he added.
“It certainly is not design,” he said regarding the Navy review. “So, now we are looking at was it [caused] by stresses under the way [the Navy] went through the heavy sea testing, or was it potentially a flaw in the weld that got through.”
North added, “It could be [caused] from…a workmanship issue. You can [just] imagine the number of miles of welds on a ship.”
In February, the Navy was forced to suspend heavy sea trials on the LCS-1 after a three- to six-inch crack in the ship’s hull developed during the trials. In addition to the hull cracks, structural anomalies were also found in the ship’s main superstructure, according to North.
Since the suspension of sea tests for LCS-1, service officials have been reviewing the incident, with Lockheed Martin officials supporting the investigation by supplying the Navy with technical information, North said.
“What we have done, basically, is re-run our models and fed them the data, the engineering basis for everything we have looked at,” he said. “So, they are taking that, plus their own assessments and they are controlling the overall assessment of the ship.”
He could not comment on when the Navy review of the incident will be complete, but noted that company officials have already begun to address some of the issues that led to the cracking on LCS-1 on the new LCS-3 ship, which is now under construction at Marinette Marine shipyards in Wisconsin.
“What we have done on [LCS]-3…from a producability standpoint, is [ask] how can we make this better, the second time around,” North said.
To that end, North acknowledged that in “some very small areas” on LCS-1 where program officials found it difficult to get a “full-penetration weld” employees would “be forced to try and get a hand in” and get a solid weld.
“So we corrected those [areas] in [LCS]-3 going forward, so that we get full capability…and completely make sure up front that everything is done,” he said.
While the hull cracking took Navy and Lockheed Martin officials by surprise, the cracks on the boat’s superstructure “were predicted,” North said, adding they are “more of a nuisance issue that occurs.” The superstructure on board LCS-3 has also been corrected to address the flaws in LCS-1.
Final custody transfer (FCT) trials for Freedom are still tentatively scheduled for October of this year, according to North. In December, the Navy awarded dual multimillion procurement deals to Lockheed Martin and Austal USA for LCS construction. Austal USA’s ship will be dubbed LCS-6 (Defense Daily, Jan. 4).
The 20-ship deal was to be split down the middle, with separate 10-ship contracts being awarded to both companies, according to a Dec. 29 service statement. The Lockheed Martin team was awarded $437 million for development and construction on its half of the LCS, while Austal USA won $432 million for its portion of the build. n