WARGEAR

‘Real time’ generation of detailed layout plans of surface warships during early stage design

Journal article (2022)

Authors

J.J. le Poole Ship Design, Production and Operations - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
E.A.E. Duchateau Defence Materiel Organisation
B.J. van Oers Defence Materiel Organisation
J.J. Hopman Ship Design, Production and Operations - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
A.A. Kana Ship Design, Production and Operations - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
Research Group
Ship Design, Production and Operations (Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2022 J.J. le Poole, E.A.E. Duchateau, B.J. van Oers, J.J. Hopman, A.A. Kana
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.110815
More Info
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Published Date

2022

Language

English

Faculty

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Department

Marine and Transport Technology

Research Group

Ship Design, Production and Operations

Abstract

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.