A Hydrodynamic Preliminary Design Optimization Framework for High Speed Planing Craft

Abstract

Ship design optimization in preliminary design stage aims to identify optimum vessel dimensions based on performance targets and design constraints simultaneously. Although vast amount of designs have been generated and evaluated since the application of optimization approaches to ship design, only a few of such designs have been built or "dissected" to gain a deeper understanding as to why such designs tend to be optimal. In this paper an optimization framework is introduced for the design of high speed planing craft, which consists of a geometry module, standard performance estimates, and a suite of state-of-the-art optimization algorithms. Single and multiobjective optimization problem formulations are solved using the framework. Designs identified through the process of optimization are further analyzed to uncover relationships among the design variables that lead to better designs. An important contribution of this paper is to illustrate the steps involved in deriving pseudo performance estimates and their utility in the context of preliminary design where such relationships can be effectively and efficiently used to sieve through a large number of designs.