RANS-based optimization procedures for ship design become increasingly complex
and require the development of more efficient optimization techniques. The four phases
of the design procedure are: shape parameterization, global sensitivity analysis,
multi-objective optimization and design review. The dimensions of the design space can
be mitigated by a smart choice for the shape parameterization and by screening and ranking the
design variables in the global sensitivity phase. Subsequently, Surrogate Based Global
Optimization (SBGO) is used to reduce the cost of the multi-objective optimization phase. For a
practical application it is shown that the computational time reduces from two weeks to only a day
when using SBGO instead of applying a Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) directly to the
solver. The design review phase is then used to verify and further develop the optimal design.
Here, we focus on automatic ship design techniques which comprises the first three steps of the
design procedure. Accelerating the ship design process is subject of ongoing research at the
Maritime Research Institute Netherlands, making it useful for practical applications with
turnaround times
of only a few weeks
