Early Stage Integrated Parametric Ship Design

Innovative ship design projects often require an extensive concept design phase to allow a wide range of potential solutions to be investigated, identifying which best suits the requirements. In these situations, the majority of ship design tools do not provide the best solution, limiting quick reconfiguration by focusing on detailed definition only. Parametric design, including generation of the hull surface, can model topology as well as geometry offering advantages often not exploited. Paramarine is an integrated ship design environment that is based on an objectorientated framework which allows the parametric connection of all aspects of both the product model and analysis together. Design configuration is managed to ensure that relationships within the model are topologically correct and kept up to date. While this offers great flexibility, concept investigation is streamlined by the Early Stage Design module, based on the (University College London) Functional Building Block methodology, collating design requirements, product model definition and analysis together to establish the form, function and layout of the design. By bringing this information together, the complete design requirements for the hull surface itself are established and provide the opportunity for parametric hull form generation techniques to have a fully integrated role in the concept design process. This paper explores several different hull form generation techniques which have been combined with the Early Stage Design module to demonstrate the capability of this design partnership.