A Hydrodynamic Preliminary Design Optimization Framework for High Speed Planing Craft

Abstract

Ship design optimization in preliminary design stage aims to identify optimum vesseldimensions based on performance targets and design constraints simultaneously.Although vast amount of designs have been generated and evaluated since theapplication of optimization approaches to ship design, only a few of such designshave been built or “dissected” to gain a deeper understanding as to why such designstend to be optimal. In this paper an optimization framework is introduced for thedesign of high speed planing craft, which consists of a geometry module, standardperformance estimates, and a suite of state-of-the-art optimization algorithms. Singleand multiobjective optimization problem formulations are solved using the framework.Designs identified through the process of optimization are further analyzed to uncoverrelationships among the design variables that lead to better designs. An importantcontribution of this paper is to illustrate the steps involved in deriving pseudo-performance estimates and their utility in the context of preliminary design wheresuch relationships can be effectively and efficiently used to sieve through a largenumber of designs.Keywords: planing craft, optimization, hull form, small craft, innovization, ship design1. Introduction