Abstract
The Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) ship has seakeeping qualities which make it particularly suitable for numerous commercial roles in what may be termed the ‘small craft’ end of the marine vehicle spectrum. Unlike many other types of ‘small craft’, structural design procedures for small SWATH ships may require the inclusion of primary loads in addition to secondary loads. Unlike the situation for large SWATH ships, these design procedures also require lightweight materials to be considered as possible alternatives to steel. It is clearly important that designers appreciate the impact which various design loads and material selection have on small SWATH structures. This paper attempts to clarify some of the foregoing aspects by describing the results of a series of finite element method (FEM) based studies conducted on a representative 70 tonne SWATH ship. The study addresses the relative importance of a number of key loads and includes a study of the relative performance of aluminium alloy and GRP sandwich as candidate materials for the haunch and strut region.
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