Hull Structures as a System: Supporting Lifecycle Analysis

As modular weapon systems allow cost‐effective upgrades of a vessel's war‐fighting capability, the degradation of the difficult‐to‐upgrade structure of the vessel may soon become one of the key drivers of vessel retirement and lifecycle maintenance costing. Existing structural design approaches...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Naval Engineers Journal
Main Author: Collette, Matthew
Other Authors: Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department of the University of Michigan
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: Blackwell Publishing Inc 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/90260
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-3584.2011.00329.x
Description
Summary:As modular weapon systems allow cost‐effective upgrades of a vessel's war‐fighting capability, the degradation of the difficult‐to‐upgrade structure of the vessel may soon become one of the key drivers of vessel retirement and lifecycle maintenance costing. Existing structural design approaches are reviewed, along with recent developments in this field. It is argued that recent research has produced a number of ad hoc metrics for structural design, such as producability; however, to truly address the needs of future ship design teams it is necessary to integrate several such metrics in a systems‐engineering view to evaluate how the structural system contributes to the overall capabilities and costs of a proposed vessel. Potential architectures for this approach are discussed, along with key shortcomings. A comparative example is given for structural fatigue of a strength deck under global bending loading, comparing the traditional design approach with a systems‐oriented view. Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90260/1/j.1559-3584.2011.00329.x.pdf