Generating detailed warship layouts is crucial to check technical feasibility and performance consistent with emergent requirement elucidation during early stage design. However, generating feasible detailed layouts is a complex and time consuming task. Even today, detailed layout plans are often manually drawn using CAD software, taking up to 150 work hours to complete a single feasible layout plan, as found by the Netherlands Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO). As a result, the number of layout variations that can be generated and analysed is limited. This typically means that further detailed layout generation is postponed, increasing the risk of costly sizing and integration issues later in the design process. Therefore, a method that enables rapid insight into layout sizing issues is required. This paper elaborates on the mathematical working mechanisms of the WARship GEneral ARrangement (WARGEAR) tool, that has been developed to support naval architects in detailing ship arrangements to space level in a matter of minutes. Contributions are: (1) a probabilistic staircase placement algorithm, (2) a network-based approach combined with probabilistic selection for allocation of spaces to compartments, (3) the use of cross-correlation to quickly arrange spaces, and (4) a ‘carving’-based approach to ensure connectivity. A representative WARGEAR application case study is presented. This test shows how WARGEAR is able to confirm the feasibility of future warship arrangements at a high level of detail within minutes.

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The Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) of the Netherlands Ministry of Defence identified that detailing warship layouts to space level of detail during the concept definition design phase is a complex and time consuming process. Currently it can take up to 150 man hours to complete a feasible general arrangement plan (GAP). Yet, these GAPs are crucial for balancing requirements and budget with technical feasible designs. Insufficient consideration of spatial details during concept definition increases the probability that sizing and integration issues will emerge later in the design process. This paper discusses the first steps undertaken to integrate a new layout generation tool, called WARGEAR (WARship GEneral ARrangement), into the DMO ship design process. WARGEAR is able to semi-automatically generate feasible and balanced detailed layouts in a matter of minutes, thus providing almost real-time feedback and design insight to naval architects. In this paper the issues of tool validation and user acceptance are addressed via a realistic warship design test case and a presentation of the test case results to a larger group of naval architects and senior management at the DMO respectively. The test case showed that WARGEAR is able to generate detailed layouts that compare well to GAPs manually generated by naval architects. The attendees at the presentation were generally positive, but also provided valuable feedback for further development of the WARGEAR tool and methodology. This shows the potential of WARGEAR to increase the speed of detailed layout generation to a matter of minutes and to improve the early stage design process by providing early insight into detailed layouts and their design drivers. @en

Naval ships are designed to operate and survive in hostile environments. As such, vulnerability reduction is a major topic of interest during the design of a naval ship. For modern naval ships the vulnerability is largely determined by the design and layout of distributed systems. The vulnerability of these systems needs to be assessed early on, as design decisions made in this stage are decisive for the vulnerability of the final ship. Various early stage methods for assessing vulnerability exist, but a clear structure on when to use what types of methods, how these methods relate to each other, and how these methods provide relevant answers, is still lacking. To address this gap, this paper introduces a framework for early stage design of distributed systems, in the context of vulnerability reduction. This framework supports in choosing the right vulnerability method at the right design stage. The framework considers an operationally oriented systems perspective on vulnerability, and a physically oriented ship perspective. In addition to that, early stage design is subdivided in concept exploration and concept definition, which have different purposes and contributions in the design process. The framework provides examples of methods that can be used to investigate vulnerability for the various perspectives and design stages. These examples consider methods that have been developed by joint Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and the Netherlands Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) research efforts, as well as other methods. Opportunities and challenges for integrating these methods between themselves and in the design process in general are discussed.@en

During the early stages of ship design a set of design requirements needs to be selected, accounting for both financial and technical feasibility, and operational effectiveness. This process of requirements elucidation creates a need for information regarding the various design alternatives and their effect on the feasibility and effectiveness of the design requirements. Therefore various methods have been developed to support a naval architect. However, when one considers an internal layout and process driven ships, ships where the arrangement of spaces aboard has a strong influence on the effectiveness of the ship's operational processes, a gap in available methods have been identified. This paper proposes a method based on queueing networks that allows a naval architect to develop a model to study the effects of different arrangements on the execution of various sets of operational processes in a ship. Using this model a better understanding of the interaction and the interdependencies between the ship's arrangement and it's operational processes can be obtained. This understanding will eventually improve the requirements elucidation process and lead to the development of better sets of design requirements.

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During the concept definition design phase, significant effort is paid to the detailing of the internal layout of ships. At the Dutch Defence Materiel Organisation first a high level ‘functional arrangement’ is generated, which is further detailed into a ‘general arrangement plan’ (GAP), to validate the functional arrangement. The GAP generation takes considerable effort. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel method, called WARGEAR (WARship GEneral ARrangement), to support the designer with the generation of GAPs. The method aims to provide quick insight in the feasibility of the functional arrangement, i.e. check whether all spaces fit and can be connected via hallways and staircases according to international and naval rules. WARGEAR applies a new seed and growth algorithm as well as a ship’s network representation to semi-automatically generate detailed layouts based on predefined functional arrangements. A multi-deck and multi-compartment case study is presented as a proof of concept of the tool.

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This paper demonstrates the usefulness of an automatic topology generator that uses genetic algorithm techniques to generate many alternative system designs and in doing so enables design space exploration for on-board energy distribution systems. This will provide better insight in the relation between design requirements (e.g. budget), system design solutions and important perfor-mance characteristics like ship survivability in early design stages. The basic idea is to apply proven techniques as used for ship configuration (i.e. hull and layout design) to the design of “ship service systems”. The case study will consist of multiple, interconnected systems on board an Ocean-going Patrol Vessel that distribute electric power, chilled water and mechanical (propulsion) power.@en