Market conditions, mission requirements and operational profiles

Abstract

The present chapter deals with the modern ship design from the perspective of an experienced European ship design and engineering office, namely Elomatic Oy. When a shipowner sees the opportunity to expand his business or replace existing vessels to enhance the productivity of a fleet, newbuilding(s) come into consideration. These newbuildings are based on the experience of the shipowner but may also contain innovative solutions, such as the use of new types of machinery and novel cargo handling systems. Increasingly, strict environmental rules and regulations also impact new designs. The interested shipowner needs to analyse the shipping environment and its development first. This analysis covers the activities of other players in the market and various influencing parameters. The market analysis of associated shipping is conducted by collecting data about vessels that are similar to the application cases. This data is used to identify relationships and important design factors for the initial sizing. Price data is also collected. Based on the collected data and derived equations, a ship concept can be created. All the collected data supports the global optimisation of the concept. The shipowner also determines the transport task and/or other tasks that need to be fulfilled. This defines the mission requirement for the shipping business. After having analysed the external parameters, the vessel itself and its operation need to be defined. A parametric model allows designers to handle and elaborate on a ship concept. This helps the naval architect to optimise the concept for a defined purpose. As the main topic of the HOLISHIP project is optimisation, the connectivity of the parametric model is important. This is herein enabled by the introduction of an intelligent general arrangement software tool (IGA), the development of which is elaborated in the following.