Trans RINA, Vol 152, Part A2, Intl J Maritime Eng, Apr-Jun 2010 150 YEARS OF SHIP DESIGN
D Andrews FREng, FRINA (DOI No: 10.3940/rina.ijme.2010.a2.172) SUMMARY
As part of writing a short article entitled “Ship Design – From Art to Science?” [1] for the Institution’s 150th anniversary celebratory volume [2], the author consulted the Institution’s centenary book by K C Barnaby [3] to get a feel for the formative first hundred years of ship design recorded in the learned papers presented to the Institution. This consultation was motivated by consideration of the papers in the first volume of the Transactions of 1860, which, surprisingly, contained no papers directly on ship design, either on ship design in general or through describing the design intent behind a specific new ship. Rather, like the very first paper by Reverend J Woolley,
the remaining 1860 papers
concerned themselves with what could be called the application of science (and mathematics) to the practice of naval architecture as an engineering discipline. However this initial focus broadened out in subsequent volumes of the Transactions so that both technical descriptions of significant new ship designs and, more recently, papers on the general practice of ship design have also figured, alongside the presentation of progress in the science of naval architecture.
Given that the vast bulk of ships built over this period have been designed like most buildings to a set pattern, or as we naval architects would say based on a (previous) “type ship”, those designs presented in the Institution’s Transactions, and the few other collections of learned societies’ papers, are largely on designs that have been seen to be of particular merit in their novelty and importance. Therefore this review looks at the developments in ship design by drawing on those articles in the Transactions that are design related. In doing so the papers have been conveniently broken down into the three, quite momentous, half centuries over which the Institution has existed. From this historical survey, it is then appropriate to consider how the practice of ship design may develop in the foreseeable future.
1. INTRODUCTION
To consider the development of ship design practice over the last 150 years through the papers read and discussed in the Institution’s transactions, it is worth first summarising the
particular nature of our form of
engineering design. To do so one must start with the product being produced and, in this regard, ships are highly diverse. A useful division is to categorise ship types in terms of their design complexity and thus, in terms of the design issues, in regard to their usage. There are other ways of categorising ships, such as differing hull configurations advanced/high
speed hull
lift/hydrodynamic lift/hybrid) or different types both of which,
from a technical point of view,
might seem more significant. However, the usage stance is considered to be more fundamental. Thus vessels, which are part of a wider transportation system, such as bulk carriers and container ships, are in this respect distinct from service vessels, be they offshore support ships, cruise ships or naval vessels, as the latter go to sea to do things, which are often unplanned and in response to unpredicted events. This can make the design process for these vessels more complex, at least in the initial design phase.
If the nature of ships is considered further, there are many issues which most complex (ocean going) vessels have to address. They have to operate in a demanding physical environment, which varies from extremes of cold and heat, as well as occasional violent and still
(e.g. monohulls/multihulls, forms, displacement/aero- propulsion
unpredictable sea and wind states. Ships remain the largest manmade mobile environments. Most ship have very high endurance and even today, with reduced crews, are highly self sufficient; operating for, potentially, months away from land and support facilities. Ships are assembled using a large number of diverse technologies, from domestic systems of water, sewage and HVAC to, nowadays, the most advanced electronics. These subsystems all have to be designed into the whole system constituting the ship. Furthermore many of the subsystems are interdependent, so their efficient integration into a totality is a clear challenge. Most of this complexity applies to both categories of ship mentioned in
the previous paragraph. Given the
complexity of the end product that the designer sets out to achieve, it is worth emphasising that the design of a complex service vessel is also challenging because of the nature of the process of designing it. Firstly, most ships that have been designed have been so in response to a specific customer’s need and thus are “bespoke”, like a tailor-made suit rather than “off the peg”, the latter approach being applicable to most other vehicles. In fact, from both
a design view and considerations of
manufacturing, a complex ship is more like a large civil engineering product, such as a bridge or modern art gallery, than being akin to smaller forms of vehicles, including the most sophisticated aircraft.
This neatly raises the next aspect in the nature of such ship design, that of the requirement the design is trying to meet. For a complex multirole vessel, intended to operate for many years and often in ways not initial perceived,
©2010: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
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