MEYER WERFT builds tenth ship for German market leader

Papenburg, 12 August 2010 – The well-known cruise operator AIDA Cruises has ordered another club ship from MEYER WERFT. The cooperation between the Rostock-based cruise company and MEYER WERFT started as early as in 2004. The new ship will be number ten in the AIDA fleet and will be delivered in spring 2013. All told, it will then be the seventh ship built by MEYER WERFT.

The new 71,300-gt ship belonging to the AIDAblu class is 252 m long and 32.20 m wide. 2,192 passengers can be accommodated on board, who will be taken care of by a crew of 661.

"I am very happy that we can continue our successful and innovative partnership with Carnival, Costa and AIDA", said Bernard Meyer, managing partner of MEYER WERFT. "When two highly innovative partners work together, this is for the most part bound to be successful. The AIDA ships are very well received by the German passengers and guarantee a sustainable growth", he added.

AIDA Cruises is the leader in the German cruise market. At MEYER WERFT another two ships are currently still under construction. They will join the fleet in 2011 and 2012.

 
Foto: Artist Impression of the newbuilding

Dr. rer. nat. Keming Du, managing director of EdgeWave GmbH:
Prize Winner of the Innovation Award Laser Technology 2010

The Innovation Award Laser Technology 2010, initiated by the associations Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik e.V. and the European Laser Institute ELI and provided with 10 000 Euros prize money, has been conferred to Dr. rer. nat. Keming Du, managing director of EdgeWave GmbH, Würselen, Germany on 5th May 2010 in Aachen´s town hall. Dr. rer. nat. Keming Du has applied to the open call for proposals with the innovation “Q-switched INNOSLAB lasers for high quality micro-processing”. In the historical ambience of the »Coronation Hall« over 250 guests of the 500 participants of the International Laser Technology Congress AKL´10 attended the awarding ceremony.

Prof. Reinhart Poprawe, vice-president of the association Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik AKL e.V. and director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT, welcomed in Aachen´s town hall the audience and especially the teams of the 3 finalists and the 10 members of the international jury. In his laudatio Dr. Paul Hilton from The Welding Institute TWI Cambridge and speaker of the jury members pointed out the dedicated work of all 3 finalist´s and the outstanding innovations of the project teams in the field of laser technology. Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Prof. e. h. mult. Dr. h. c. mult. Hans-Jörg Bullinger, president of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and dinner speaker of the awarding ceremony, conferred the 1st prize of the Innovation Award Laser Technology 2010 provided with 10 000 Euro prize money to Dr. Keming Du and his team of the EdgeWave GmbH, Würselen, Germany for the development of Q-switched INNOSLAB lasers for high quality micro-processing. The prize winner Dr. Du has been furthermore awarded the title of »AKL Fellow« and »ELI Fellow«. The trophy for the prize winner and the certificates for Dr. Du and the other project management team members Dr. Claus-Rüdiger Haas, Dipl.-Ing. Alexander Schell, and Dr. Dailjun Li were handed over by Dipl.-Ing. Ulrich Berners, president of the Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik AKL e.V. and Dr. Stefan Kaierle, president of the European Laser Institute ELI.

INNOSLAB lasers represent a new laser class which is suitable for a large variety of applications in different sectors of industry and research. With his features INNOSLAB lasers enable a variety of challenging applications with added value such micro-processing of glass, scribing, edge deletion, high throughput thin film structuring, and pumping of dye lasers.

The technological impact of the innovation includes
• improving existing manufacturing processes
• enabling new production processes and new types of products
• precision processing with small heat affected zones and high reproducibility
• high productivity in micro-processing
• new design of drilled holes by changing the cross-sections along the hole depth
• green processing with high energy efficiency
• efficient pumping sources for dye lasers, OPO and OPA sources at high repetition rates

The major sectors of industry which are profiting from the INNOSLAB lasers are:
• Photovoltaic, e.g. scribing, drilling and cutting of Si-wafer, ablation of conduction or dielectric layers of thin film solar and crystalline Si solar cells
• Display, e.g. structuring of conduction layer, sequential lateral crystallization of Si
• Glass industry, e.g. micro drilling and high throughput subsurface engraving
• Scientific, e.g. pumping of dye laser, pumping of OPO and Ti:Saphire laser, particle imaging velocimetry
• Electronics industry, e.g. drilling and cutting of printed circuit boards
• Tool making and mechanical engineering, e.g. 3D rapid prototyping via ablation

The international jury selected on a basis of merit and according to the published assessment criteria (see www.innovation-award-laser.org) 2 other innovation teams as finalists, which have also been honoured in the Coronation Hall.

The prize for the 2nd place of the Innovation Award Laser Technology 2010 has been conferred to Dipl.-Ing. Jürgen Dupré and his team of Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd. & Co. KG, Dahlewitz and Oberursel, Germany. The innovation consists in a New repair technique for aero-engine components using Laser Metal Deposition.
The members of the project management team are:
Dipl.-Ing. Jürgen Dupré, Repair Engineering Specialist, IPT LeadRolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd. & Co. KG, Dahlewitz
Certified Engineer Elke Weiss, Repair Engineer Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd. & Co. KG, Oberursel
Dipl.-Ing. Gerhard Backes, Project Leader Repai Processes Lehrstuhl für Lasertechnik LLT, RWTH Aachen University
Dr. Andres Gasser, Group Leader Laser Metal Deposition Fraunhofer-Institut für Lasertechnik ILT, Aachen

The prize for the 3rd place of the Innovation Award Laser Technology 2010 has been conferred to Dipl.-Ing. Hermann Lembeck and his team of the MEYER WERFT Laserzentrum GmbH, Papenburg, Germany. The innovation consists in Laser hybrid welding of thick sheet metals with disk lasers in shipbuilding industry
The members of the project management team are:
Dipl.-Ing. Hermann Lembeck, Factory manager
Dipl.-Ing. Guido Pethan, Project leader invests
Dipl.-Ing Frank Boekhoff, Test manager, R&D MEYER WERFT Laserzentrum GmbH, Papenburg

All 3 applications have led to an outstanding innovation in the field of laser technology and are presented in detail including texts and photos on www.innovation-award-laser.org.

The Innovation Award Laser Technology is a European research prize awarded at 2-yearly intervals by the associations Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik e.V. and the European Laser Institute ELI. The award can be conferred on an individual researcher or on an entire project group, whose exceptional skills and dedicated work have led to an outstanding innovation in the field of laser technology. The scientific and technological projects in question must center on the use of laser light in materials processing and the methods of producing such light, and must furthermore be of demonstrable commercial value to industry.

The international jury is consisting of 10 members that are recruited from industry and the research community. The jury’s decision was based principally on the following criteria:

• Proven commercial benefit
• Innovative quality of the resulting laser beam source, laser manufacturing process or laser system
• Scientific / technological quality of the underlying research
• Creative approach to technology demonstrated by the designated individual or project group
• Importance of the contribution of the applicant’s work to the overall innovative process

Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik AKL e.V.
Arbeitskreis Lasertechnik AKL e.V. is a registered non-profit association formed in 1990 by a group of companies and private individuals aiming to pool their experience and conduct joint public-relations activities in order to spread the use of laser technology in industry and promote the sharing of scientific ideas. The »Innovation Award Laser Technology« aims to reward excellent achievements in applied research and outstanding innovation in the field of laser technology and to shine a spotlight on their authors. In 2009, around 90 laser experts and enthusiasts were signed up as active members of the AKL network. The association’s activities include disseminating information on innovations in laser technology, organizing conferences and seminars, compiling educational material dealing with laser technology, stimulating the interest of future young scientists, and providing advice to industry and research scientists on questions relating to laser technology. More information: www.akl-ev.de

New Postpanamax Ship Celebrity ECLPISE for Celebrity Cruises

Eemshaven/Papenburg, April 15, 2010  – Today MEYER WERFT delivered the new passenger cruise vessel Celebrity ECLIPSE to Celebrity Cruises (Miami, USA) in the Dutch port of Eemshaven. The Celebrity ECLIPSE is the third ship out of a series of five cruise ships the shipyard is building for Celebrity Cruises. MEYER WERFT and Celebrity Cruises have developed and built an extremely eco-friendly ship. A total energy saving of about 30% compared to similar ships is achieved by highly energy-efficient components such as a photovoltaic system, optimised hull design (hydrodynamics), an very efficient underwater coating or an energy-saving lighting system using LEDs.

Ship Design

Dimension	122,000 gt
Length overall	317.20 m
Moulded breadth	36.8 m
Number of decks	17
Draught (fully loaded)	8.50 m
Engine output	67,200 kW in total
Propulsion power	41,000 kW
Speed	24 Kn.
Number of passengers	2.852
Number of passenger cabins	1426
Number of outside cabins  (including suites)	1286
Number of inside cabins	140
Crew	approx. 1,271
Number of theatre seats	1.095
Number of restaurants and cafés	10
Number of shops	16
Number of bars	16
Total weight of applied paint	approx. 320 t
Total length of laid cables	3.000 km
Total length of laid pipes	212 km
Flag	Malta
Classification	Det Norske Veritas  ✠ 1A1 “Passenger Ship“         ECO, RPS,F-M,COMF-V(1)  FUEL, LCD-DC, BIS

The ship was designed in close cooperation with the owner, and was optimised by means of computer calculations and model tank tests. Thanks to her slender outlines the ship, with her 17 decks and a pod propulsion system, features a very low fuel consumption and has outstanding manoeuvring and sea-keeping capabilities as well as low noise and vibration levels.

Ems conveyance brought forward due to bad weather forecast

!!  All details are subject to wind and weather conditions, and water levels and can hence not be warranted. Changes to the time schedule may occur  !!

8.000 visitors at MEYER WERFT's Open House event

Papenburg, 7 March 2010 – Today employess of the MEYER WERFT group of companies had the chance to show their families and friends the shipyard. At this Open Day event, away from the day-to-day routine, all employees could take a different look at the new, or strongly modified, production premises, such as the block construction lines, MEYER WERFT Laserzentrum GmbH, MEYER WERFT Rohrbearbeitungszentrum GmbH and the visitors centre.

During the tour of the shipyard each department and the organisational changes including the large amount of improved working processes were explained by means of display boards or short film and presentations on monitors. In this way the success alrady gained with the changed organisation of the shipyard and the new production processes was once again presented. MEYER WERFT has made these changes within the scope of its Concpet 2010 in reaction to the massive economic and financial crisis.

The goal of this concept is to implement a so-called lean production so as to offer the shipyard's customers top-quality ships at competitive prices built in an even shorter period of time. This is the only way to win new contracts in the future.

Celebrity ECLIPSE leaves building dock

Undocking of third cruise ship for Celebrity Cruises

Papenburg, 24 February 2010 – On early Sunday morning (28 February 2010) the Celebrity ECLIPSE, the new cruise ship for the US cruise operator Celebrity Cruises (Miami), will be floated out of the covered building dock II of MEYER WERFT.

Undocking will start around 7.30 a.m. By 9.30 a.m. the Celebrity ECLIPSE will temporarily be moored at the outfitting pier. Starting around 1 p.m., various tests and trials will be conducted in the harbour. The ship will be moored again at the pier around 5 p.m. With the ship being berthed, the remaining interior finishing work as well as tests and trials will be carried out in the next two weeks.

Once the undocking is completed, the first crew members will move into their quarters on board. On 12/13 March 2010 the Celebrity ECLIPSE will be conveyed down the river Ems to her trials port in Eemshaven (Netherlands).

The 122.000-gt cruise ship Celebrity ECLIPSE is 317 m long and 36.80 m wide. In 1,426 cabins more than 2,850 passengers can be accommodated. She can operate at a speed of 24 knots. 

The undocking time schedule may change due to weather conditions!

Foto: Celebrity ECLIPSE  presently inside MEYER WERFT's building dock prior

Papenburg, 12 February 2010 – Starting today, another attraction is waiting for visitors to MEYER WERFT: Disney Cruise Line’s (DCL) recently opened exhibition in the Visitors Centre reveals information about the shipyard and the cruise ships under construction.

It is understood that the visit to the shipyard ends with a highlight, namely a view into the covered building dock where the “Disney Dream” is being built. She is one of two ships MEYER WERFT is building for Disney Cruise Line.

The newly built theme area in the Visitors Centre of MEYER WERFT completes the previous exhibition and the yard tour event. Especially for families and children this area is very attractive. A visit to the yard including a tour headed by a competent guide and a visit to the Disney exhibition will approximately take 2.5 hours.

Along with this new offer for families and children, the „floating classroom“ represents another topic tailored to students of primary schools. The tours are guided by personnel especially trained in education.