Multicriterion Scantling Optimization of the Midship Section of a Passenger Vessel considering IACS Requirements

Abstract

peer reviewedIn the scantling design of a passenger ship, minimum production cost, minimum weight and maximum moment of inertia (stiffness) are conflicting objectives. For that purpose, recent improvements were made to the LBR-5 software (French acronym of “Stiffened Panels Software”, version 5.0) to optimize the scantling of ship sections by considering production cost, weight and moment of inertia in the optimization objective function. Moreover, IACS requirements regarding bending, shearing and buckling strength are currently available in LBR-5. Until now, only raw scantling optimizations were performed with LBR-5. Thanks to new developments using heuristics, it is now possible to realize discrete optimization so that a standardized and “ready to use” set of optimum scantlings can be obtained