Inland Waterway Traffic Simulator

peer reviewe

Lock Gates - Innovative concepts

This paper introduces some new innovative concepts identifies by the INCOM WG29 and reported in the PIANC report 106 “Innovations in Navigation Lock Design”, 2009.The paper focusses on innovation in LOCK GATESPeer reviewe

A Simplified Procedure to Assess the Strength of a Ship Impacting a Lock Miter Gate

peer reviewe

Early Structural Assessment and Optimisation of Passenger Ships

peer reviewedA multi-criteria optimisation of a passenger ship is conducted in this paper. Minimum production cost and minimum steel weight are the both objective studied. Moreover the study answers to the following question: "From when will the higher costs of high tensile steel should be offset by a gain of steel weight?". For a passenger ship, a significant reduction of the steel weight, for a controlled raise of the gravity centre, should lead either to a reduction of fuel consumption either to an additional deck, which for a ship owner means a faster return on investment. Pareto frontiers are obtained and results are validated by classification rules

Introduction to the PIANC Report 106 on Locks - Innovations In Navigation Lock Design.

peer reviewedFirst paper of the workshop - General presentation of the PIANC report N° 106 on Lock

Application of artificial neural networks to the evaluation of the ultimate strength of uniaxially compressed welded stiffened aluminium plates

peer reviewedA series of elastoplastic large-deflection finite element analyses is performed on stiffened aluminium plates with flat-bar stiffeners under in-plane longitudinal compression loads. Then, the closed-form ultimate compressive strength formula is derived for stiffened aluminium plates by regression analysis. Finally, artificial neural network methodology is applied to predict the ultimate strength of uniaxially compressed stiffened aluminium plates. It is found that artificial neural network models can produce a more accurate prediction of the ultimate strength of the stiffened aluminium plates than can the existing empirical formula

Empirical Formulations for Estimation of Ultimate Strength of Continuous Stiffened Aluminium Plates under Combined in-plane Compression and Lateral Pressure

peer reviewe

A mixed-integer heuristic for the structural optimization of a cruise ship

peer reviewedA heuristic approach is proposed to solve the structural optimization problem of a cruise ship. The challenge of optimization is to define the scantling of the structure of a ship in order to minimize the weight or the production cost. The variables are the dimensions and positions of the constitutive elements of the structure: they are discrete by nature. The objective functions are nonlinear functions. The structure is submitted to geometric constraints and to structural constraints. The geometric constraints are linear functions and the structural constraints are implicit functions requiring a high computation cost. The problem belongs to the class of mixed-integer nonlinear problems (MINLP). A local heuristic of the type “dive and fix” is combined with a solver based on approximation methods. The solver is used as a black-box tool to perform the structural analysis and solve the nonlinear optimization problems (NLP) defined by the heuristic. The heuristic is designed to always provide a discrete feasible solution. Experiments on a real-size structure demonstrate that the optimal value of the mixed-integer problem is of the same magnitude as the optimal value of the optimization problem for which all the variables can take continuous values

Optimization of Shipyard Space Allocation and Scheduling using Heuristic Algorithm

In this paper we describe the development of a tool that allows planners to efficiently and effectively plan space within valuable areas of a shipyard. Traditionally, space is considered as resource; however, it is difficult to accurately account for and plan its consumption with the current planning software tools available. The spatial scheduling tool described in this paper can be used by planners to manually or automatically reserve space within the shipyard for construction of large blocks over the entire ship erection period. The software is coupled with a heuristic optimization solver which is inspired by an algorithm used for "3D bin-packing problems". The result is the ability to efficiently generate and compare multiple space allocation alternatives in a reduced time with the ultimate goal of maintaining the critical ship erection schedule. Better solution than manual or semi-automatic allocation of blocks can be obtained through the optimization module