Software-Enabled Set-Based Ship Concept Design

Abstract

The preliminary design phase of a ship acquisition program offers an overwhelming number of possible design configurations of which only a small number can be thoroughly developed by an experienced design team. This creates serious program risks, particularly when designing a ship that is fundamentally different from prior ships, such as an unmanned vessel. Set-based design offers a solution to this problem by separating functional disciplines into discrete sets that can be efficiently analyzed in parallel with one another. However, this process is still typically performed by teams of subject matter experts (SMEs) who are expensive to utilize and are potentially biased by past experiences or conventional thought patterns. The Serco Maritime Engineering Operations team has developed a new suite of software tools which attempts to improve upon a set-based design process by automating the generation of design points within each functional set. This software may be utilized in the first stage of any ship design program to provide the design team a high-level overview of the available design space by generating a large quantity of design seeds which can then be used as starting points for SMEs to develop ship concepts using conventional means for detailed trade studies and exploration.