Naval architecture

The naval architecture is the part of the engineering treating of the construction of Structure S sailing.

Work of the Architect

A naval Architecte must design a machine (Navire, Bateau, oil Plate-forme, Sous-marin,…) who must answer a Schedule of conditions. For example:

To be able to transport X thousands of tons of such ore or Y momentary,
to make a way given in a maximum time;

That is to say sufficiently sure:

Follows the Réglementation S in force,
resists the Tempête S, etc

Not costing a Fortune the purchase nor in maintenance.

To carry out a compromised among a great number of Contrainte S techniques and lawful is a whole Art and is the gasoline even of the naval architecture.

Typical step

Initially, the Armateur submits his schedule of conditions to the architect. The schedule of conditions can be very detailed, for example by choosing the mark of the engines already, or on the contrary very brief (a road, a speed, a capacity).

The architect can thus create a draft, giving some dimensions, a general silhouette, sometimes of the capacities. For that, it in general uses the existing data on similar ships, like its own last achievements.

If the ship-owner is satisfied, the architect passes to the preliminary draft, which will fix dimensions, the general provision of volumes, materials used, and will give an estimate of the total price. On this level, the ship-owner can still intervene, but seldom at the stage of the itself project. It should be noted that, as of this first stage, the lawful part intervenes (house of the ship, company of classification selected…) in a very important way. The trio /armateur architect/Société of classification must function well.

The architect passes finally to the project itself, whose objective is to produce sufficiently detailed plans for construction. It is also during this phase that the architect checks the conformity of the project to the regulations and the standards of Sécurité. The national payments and the recommendations of the companies of classification precisely guide the details of the design like the general aspects. In many cases, the architect will be pressed on specialized research departments, the building site or the suppliers to make specific studies (calculations of stability, structural analyzes, fire protection, optimization of the shapes of the hull to decrease consumption, engine and propellers…)

Nowadays, for the construction of large ships (steamers, tankers…), the building sites are very large companies whose architect is often an employee who acts like a project manager.

Elements of a project

The buckled project consists of a certain number of plans and documents:

a outline drawing, representing the form external of the ship in three dimensions, like its principal dimensions;
an overall plan, detailing all the zones of the ship (the provision of the compartments, holds, tanks), the site of the cabins and the zones of navigation, the provision of the machines, etc;
of the plans of construction, comprising the samplings (thicknesses of material) necessary to construction, and detailing the particular zones (rudder, machines…) ;
a general specification, document detailing the whole of the components of the ship: type of material, models of engine, weight of painting, etc

Moreover, one project will be able to also include the following elements:

various diagrams: electrical circuits, ventilation, control circuits;
of the clean specifications: for example, diagram of gauge, report/ratio of freeboard, file of stability.

Aspects to be treated

A project of ship must take into account various elements essential to its success:

Floating and slope: the ship must of course float (or, for a submarine, to be able to preserve its immersion), and right;
Hydrostatic: Stability in an intact state (can the ship capsize?), after damage (which spaces are they invadable?) ;
Hydrodynamic: the ship moving in the fluid. (Bluff bow, squat)
Evacuation: in the event of serious damage, how to evacuate the crew and passengers?
Structure: how to produce an at the same time light and solid ship?
Environment: Pollution, waves, ice…
Machinery and propulsion
Maneuverability
Held with the sea
Cost: construction, maintenance and operation.
national and international Payments
special Functions of the ship

Tools

The naval architects currently use computer tools: CAD/FAO, but also of the programs specialized for many calculations (structural analyzes and constraints, calculations of hull,…).

For example for the naval hydrodynamic part of the loop ship, the architect naval has tools of CFD, increasingly powerful, with increasingly complex modeling ( non stationary Navier-Stokes flow on free face ) which enable him to choose, among tens of the shapes of ships, that which will correspond to its schedule of conditions. This form, most of the time for the great projects of ships (steamer, sailing ship of race, military ship, ship of research, tradind ship), will be then tested on a model out of basin of test of the hulls in order to confirm the forecasts of numerical calculations.

Source

See too

External bonds

J. Dahec, dictionary of the old and modern navy

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