Structural Optimisation of Midship Region for Ro-Pax Vessel in Early Design Stage using FEA

Abstract

The international shipping industry covers around 90% of the world trade. The bulk transport of raw materials, affordable import and export of food and manufactured goods between inter continents won’t be possible without the maritime transport. The requirements from the maritime industry and the classification societies related with safety, energy efficiency, environmental protection, etc. force us to look for more efficient and cost effective technologies. This calls for the development of an integrated multi-disciplinary and -objective design optimisation platform to be used in early design stage of traditional ship design process. The thesis focuses on demonstrating the application of an automated platform for the structural optimisation of the midship of a typical Ro-Pax vessel in the early stage of ship design process. It is based on the undergoing researches on the framework of European Research Council funded project, HOLISHIP (Holistic Optimisation of Ship Design and Operation for Life Cycle), which focuses on developing innovative holistic design optimisation methods for European maritime industry. The thesis covers the development of a parametric model of the midship using commercial finite element software ANSYS® and which will eventually be used for optimisation using modeFRONTIER® with an aim to reduce the total weight of the structure. A number of in-house tools/ modules are also developed and integrated in the automated platform. The study also extended to implement surrogate models to replace the finite element analysis which allow the customer to reduce the calculation time.