Seeing arrangements as connections: The use of networks in analysing existing and historical ship designs

A growing trend in computer aided ship design, particularly in the early stages, is the utilisation of approaches and numerical methods developed in other disciplines. Examples include genetic algorithms, financial methods of risk assessment and the use of network science. Networks can provide an abstract mathematical representation of many types of connected features, properties and information, such that the associated network analysis metrics and approaches can offer new ways of investigating and evaluating ship designs. This paper reports on ongoing UCL investigations into the application of network science in assisting human analysis of the general arrangements of existing ship designs. This work includes designs of complex service vessels (research vessels) as a comparison with naval ships and makes use of freely available network analysis software. This project makes use of the experience in naval vessel concept design at UCL by enabling a comparison of expert judgement and interpretation of designs with the quantitative network metrics. This paper describes the network analysis approach adopted, the findings for the arrangements analysed, and also discusses the future work required to further the approach

Concept Studies for a Joint Support Ship

While all the major NATO navies have been under considerable pressure to downsize following the end of the post-Cold War, the higher degree of political instability world-wide has led to a desire to increase the deployability of the reduced number of naval assets. Thus there has been an increased interest in providing a new generation of naval support vessels as part of each navy’s contribution to Coalition peacekeeping. These new support ships are often also required to provide a contribution to amphibious capabilities, including humanitarian tasks, in littoral operations. This means there is a challenging combination of capabilities being sought from the current replacements of traditional afloat support ships. This paper describes the design work undertaken by the Design Research Centre at UCL, as part of a bid team responding to a Canadian National Defence Department requirement for feasibility studies into a “Joint Support Ship” programme. The UCL task consisted of designing a range of possible design options, to investigate the impact of capabilities on the configuration of this innovative concept, exploring the requirement’s two levels of capability, namely, “shall” and “should” as part of designing to cost and capability. A range of concepts was designed using the UCL Design Building Block approach, using the SURFCON module of the Graphics Research Corporation PARAMARINE ship design system. The advantage this approach gave in designing these novel solutions is shown through the ability of the DBB concept approach to balance both technical and configurational features, thereby enabling significantly different ship styles to be readily produced and compared

Distributed Ship Service Systems Architecture in The Early Stages of Designing Physically Large and Complex Vessels: The Submarine Case

In the initial sizing of complex vessels, where recourse to type ship design can be overly restrictive, one crucial set of design features has traditionally been poorly addressed. This is the estimation of the weight and space demands of the various Distributed Ship Services Systems (DS3), which include different types of commodity services beyond those primarily associated with the ship propulsion system. In general, naval vessels are typified by extensive and densely engineered DS3, with the modern naval submarine being at the extreme of dense outfitting. Despite this, the ability for the concept designer to consider the impact of different configurations for the DS3 arrangements has not been readily addressed in concept design. This paper describes ongoing work at University College London (UCL) to develop a novel DS3 synthesis approach utilising computer tools, such as Paramarine™, MATLAB®, and CPLEX®, which provide the concept designer with a quantitative network-based evaluation to enable DS3 space and weight inputs early in the design process. The results of applying the approach to a conventional submarine case study indicate quantitative insights into early DS3 sizing can be obtained. The paper concludes with likely developments in concluding the research study

Modelling the operational effects of deploying and retrieving a fleet of uninhabited vehicles on the design of dedicated naval surface ships

Uninhabited vehicles (UXVs) are becoming an important component of naval warfare, providing an entirely new capability. By projecting military power in a more affordable way, through the use of UXVs, exposure of human life to military threats should be significantly reduced. While several navies are employing UXVs for a variety of applications, the concept of operating a fleet of such vehicles from a mothership that supports their overall operations during a mission, is a further challenge. This paper describes the research conducted by University College London (UCL) Design Research Centre (DRC) to develop and demonstrate a relevant analytical approach to design a mothership supporting a fleet of UXVs. This research should provide ship designers with the basis for early stage assessment of the impact of the various facilities seen as appropriate to host and support a substantial fleet of UXVs. It is particularly focused on the Launch and Recovery (LAR) capability of the UXV mothership. The research explored various options to demonstrate the proposed approach, rather than producing a definitive mothership design solution. This was appropriate given the fact that any UXV fleet composition is hard to predict (since mission related) and UXV technology is rapidly developing, so both must be speculative. It was found that the QT tool could provide meaningful investigation into the impact of potential tasks to be undertaken by a fleet of UXVs, addressing the design of mission bays, which were shown to be key to USV mothership design. While more focused simulations could refine subsystem options, this was not pursued, given the technology is still developing. Consequently, at this very early stage of investigating the deployment of a fleet of USVs from surface ships (through case studies), queuing network theory was seen to be more appropriate than a simulation-based analysis for this initial exploratory and investigatory work on future naval deployment of UXVs

The Advanced Technology Corvette - Railgun (ATK-R) Design Study - Future Weapons and Small Ship Power Systems

High-power electric weapons, such as the ElectroMagnetic RailGun (EMRG), laser and High Power Microwave devices are moving closer to practical utilisation by navies, and prototype EMRG systems are being tested at militarily useful energy levels. Previous work in the UCL Department of Mechanical Engineering includes; preliminary design studies for surface combatants with an all electric weapons outfit; and detailed marine engineering analysis, to PhD level, of the implications for future power and propulsion systems of these weapons. Design studies for electrically armed ships have generally examined large destroyer-sized surface combatants, with significant installed electrical power. This paper describes a concept design study for a small corvette-sized combatant, ATK-R, developed as the “minimum sized ship” capable of supporting an EMRG as its primary armament This paper describes the UCL ZEOLIT design tool, the ship design impacts and marine engineering integration of this future concept including the use of Energy Storage Systems (ESS) and the choice between power limited (Patrol vessel -like) and power dense (Fast attack craft –like) power and propulsion systems

An architectural framework for distributed naval ship systems

This paper introduces a framework for analyzing distributed ship systems. The increase in interconnected and interdependent systems aboard modern naval vessels has significantly increased their complexity, making them more vulnerable to cascading failures and emergent behavior that arise only once the system is complete and in operation. There is a need for a systematic approach to describe and analyze distributed systems at the conceptual stage for naval vessels. Understanding the relationships between various aspects of these distributed systems is crucial for uninterrupted naval operations and vessel survivability. The framework introduced in this paper decomposes information about an individual system into three views: the physical, logical, and operational architectural representations. These representations describe the spatial and functional relationships of the system, together with their temporal behavior characteristics. This paper defines how these primary architectural representations are used to describe a system, the interrelations between the architectural blocks, and how those blocks fit together. A list of defined terms is presented, and a preliminary set of requirements for specific design tools to model these architectures is discussed. A practical application is introduced to illustrate how the framework can be used to describe the delivery of power to a high energy weapon

The advanced technology corvette (Railgun): A concept exploration of future warships

High power electric weapons, such as high-energy lasers and the Electro-Magnetic Rail Gun (EMRG) are the focus of research for naval application. Previous work at UCL has considered the integration of these systems on large surface warships, and the Advanced Technology Korvette – Railgun (ATK-R) project is an ongoing UCL thought experiment concerning future small warships armed with electric weapons. It brings together three main areas of research; design methodology (ZEOLIT); ballistics modelling (HYPNOS); and PhD level research into Energy Storage Systems (ESS). This paper provides some background on aspects of EMRG weapons and ESS options, before describing the ATK-R design studies carried out so far. The paper concludes with some design trends identified and future areas for development, both in terms of EMRG integration with warships and UCL research

Distributed ship service systems architecture in the early stages of physically large and complex products

In the initial sizing of complex vessels, where recourse to type ship design can be overly restrictive, one crucial set of design features has traditionally been poorly addressed. This is the estimation of the weight and space demands of the various Distributed Ship Services Systems (DS3), which include different types of commodity services beyond those primarily associated with the ship propulsion system. In general, naval vessels are typified by extensive and densely engineered DS3, with the modern naval submarine being at the extreme of dense outfitting. Despite this, the ability for the concept designer to consider the impact of different configurations for the DS3 arrangements has not been readily addressed in concept design. This paper describes ongoing work at University College London (UCL) to develop a novel DS3 synthesis approach utilising computer tools, such as Paramarine™, MATLAB®, and CPLEX®, which provide the concept designer with a quantitative network-based evaluation to enable DS3 space and weight inputs early in the design process