Expansion Brings Steel Ship Production to Alabama.

The greenfield project serves as the latest addition to the customer’s shipbuilding campus in Mobile, AL. The facility expansion and creation of the carbon steel line increases the size of the campus to more than 1 million s.f. and will produce up to nine ships a year.

As part of the addition of a new production line, Gray divided Austal’s modular manufacturing area with a wall to separate the new carbon steel production materials and equipment from the aluminum production processes. The addition of steel capability ensures that Austal USA will remain a major contributor to the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.

The carbon steel panel production line will feature two large roll-up doors at 56′ wide and 45′ tall with a clear span of 225′ and 15′ deep girders that span the length of the building. Gray used more than a dozen heavy-duty cranes for the facility’s construction. Gray is also integrating complex mechanical infrastructure for the facility’s process utilities, such as welding gas, compressed air, and dust collection ducts, all trenched underground to avoid overhead conflicts in the fabricating process.