Exploring market uncertainty in early ship design

Simulating the effect of design parameters on vessel performance in an uncertain market

Master thesis (2020)

Authors

J.J. Zwaginga Mechanical Engineering

Contributors

J.J. Hopman Marine and Transport Technology (mentor)
A.A. Kana Ship Design, Production and Operations - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (mentor)
Ko Stroo Ulstein Design and Solutions B.V. (mentor)
Jorge Garcia Ulstein International A.S. (mentor)
F. Schulte Transport Engineering and Logistics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (graduation committee member)
J. Rezaei Transport and Logistics - TPM (graduation committee member)
Faculty
Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Copyright: © 2020 Jesper Zwaginga
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Published Date

10-07-2020

Language

English

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Faculty

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

To decrease Europe’s harmful emissions, the European Union aims to substantially increase its offshore wind energy capacity. To further develop offshore wind energy, investment in ever-larger construction vessels is necessary. Designing these vessels is difficult however, as this market is characterised by a large but seemingly unpredictable growth of market demand, turbine size and distance from shore. Currently no way of dealing with such market uncertainty within the ship design process was found to exist. This research aims to develop a method that is able to deal with market uncertainty in early ship design by increasing knowledge when design freedom is still high. The method uses uncertainty modelling prior to the requirement definition stage by performing global market research, and during the concept design stage by iteratively co-evolving the vessel design and business case in parallel. The method consists of three parts; simulating an expected market from data, modelling multiple vessel designs, and an uncertainty model that evaluates the performance of the vessels in the market. The case study into offshore wind foundation installation vessels showed that the method can provide valuable insight in the effect of ship design parameters like main dimensions, crane size and ship speed on the performance in an uncertain market. These results were used to create an initial design that is expected to perform well in the uncertain market. The developed method thus provides a way to deal with market uncertainty in the early ship design process.