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Self-repairing hull Gelfworks has always been an advocate of biotechnology, and so the use of a tactic that is similar in natural to biology is no surprise. Biological ships have, amongst other things, one main advantage: their ability to repair their hulls. This self-repairing ability is a great thing, and there are two normal ways of doing it: Biotech, with cells that extrude material, solidifiers, binding agents, etc, or nanotech, which is how the Borg repair their vessels, using nanoassemblers to reconstruct the hull as it was from base stock. After seeing so many ships lost to a simple hull breech that waseasily preventable, researchers at Gelfworks in 2398 set about finding out a third, Federation-compatible way of dealing with the problem. After 2 years of hard work and many setbacks, a solution was discovered. The way to do it is to mix in a free-flowing gel with the normal hull material. The gel is contained in micrograins that are dispersed evenly throughout the hull. Upon breaking, the gel flows into the break and solidifies into a seal. The gel, as it turned out, is the hardest part; it must precisely match the composition of the ship`s hull material. For ships with a simple composition its easy; duranium, tritanium, etc are easy to form into a gel. More advanced ships, with cortanium, duratanium, toranium, etc have a harder time making a gel. Consequently, its more expensive, and the flow time is longer. More advanced ships(like the ExcaliburX and Pendragon classes) would have a 'healing' time 30-45% longer than ships like the Intrepid and Nova classes, that have simple hulls. The biggest drawback initially was the fact that only a complete outer hull refit would allow ships to use the technique; useful for new ships, but what about older vessels? Phase-transition welding was the answer. Its been a standard technique for almost 75 years to join two pieces of metal by using a low-powered transporter beam to convert the point where the two meet into phased matter, then back to normal matter; the two pieces kinda blend into eachother at that point, a totally seamless weld. A similar technique is used on hull plating; a hull piece is exposed to the beam, the micrograins are distributed through the phased matter and then the beam is turned off. |
