ASMAR Astillero Talcahuano

ASMAR Astillero Talcahuano is the Talcahuano plant of ASMAR, Astilleros y Maquinarias de la Armada, the Chilean naval shipyard corporation, and stands on the Bay of Concepcion. ASMAR runs three yards and the head office is in Valparaiso; the other two sites, Valparaiso and Magallanes, publish workshops and services only, with no dock, slipway or quay of their own, so the corporation's docking capacity is here. Repair is taken on naval and commercial vessels of up to 96,000 deadweight tonnes and newbuilding up to 50,000 deadweight tonnes. Five docking structures are in service, all of them named in the maritime authority resolution of 11 November 2021 that habilitates the plant: dry dock No 1, Almirante Bannen, rated at 18,000 tonnes, dry dock No 2 at 96,000 tonnes, the floating docks Mery and Mutilla at 3,000 tonnes each and the floating dock Gutierrez at 1,200 tonnes. Vessels are launched from a slipway rated for 50,000 deadweight tonnes and served by two 50-tonne cranes, and fitting out afloat is done at the Molo Ugarte. Newbuilding is served by a steel shop of 7,140 square metres where plate is blasted, cut, curved and welded into profiles, panels and blocks, a pipe and minor structures shop of 2,185 square metres, and a habitability, electrical and electronics shop of 2,370 square metres that also makes shipboard furniture. Machinery work covers shafts of up to 18 metres, 24 tonnes and 1.6 metres in diameter, in-situ machining to 600 millimetres in diameter over a four-metre bar, and rotor balancing to 11 tonnes and 3 metres. There is an electronically controlled test bench for diesel engines up to 6,600 kilowatts and electrical benches for generators at 380 volts to 750 kilowatts and 440 volts to 1,100 kilowatts. Hull treatment uses ultra-high-pressure water and abrasive blasting, and glass-reinforced plastic work is done. A measurement laboratory accredited by the Instituto Nacional de Normalizacion to ISO 17025 covers pressure, torque, length, temperature and electrical quantities. The newbuilding programme running at Talcahuano is the landing platform dock Magallanes, under Project Escotillon IV.