6. Applications

6.1 Current applications

• Shipbuilding

  To date, several applications are at the industrial production stage.

  The very first application involves light-alloy panels for refrigeration systems on fishing boats, produced by juxtaposing and FSW welding extruded profiles.

  A similar application has begun in Japan for 1,250 × 5,000 mm shipbuilding panels.

  More than 1,700 panels covering a length of 160 km were produced in Norway.

  In these large-scale production processes, the main benefit is the resulting low distortion, which, combined with productivity, was the deciding factor.

  Some panels used to form ship hulls are...