Shipbuilding is acknowledged as an uncertain, complex, and unique industrial effort that yields massive products consisting of numerous parts and is vulnerable to unexpected events. The industry is also dominated by customer requirements through designs tailor-made for a specific ship. Planning in shipbuilding is therefore considered a formidable process. Consequently, many studies have been conducted to develop a planning framework for the industry to efficiently handle planning process. Yet none of these studies are deemed substantial enough to be regarded as holistic, straightforward, well-accepted, and compatible with the nature of shipbuilding. This study is therefore an important contribution by presenting a novel, hybrid, and integrated general-purpose planning framework applicable to all shipbuilding processes. The novel method exploits historical ship construction scheduling data, synthesizing hierarchical planning, dynamic scheduling, and discrete-event simulation, which is validated through an empirical study in this paper.

Tsunami wave characteristics are greatly influenced by the initial water level when they attack structures. In this study, experimental and numerical investigations were conducted to investigated the relationship between tsunami wave characteristics and initial water levels. Results showed that, the wave height, wave velocity, and Froude number increase with the increase of tsunami wave intensity; the time history of water levels were influenced by the different initial water level conditions; the analytical solution proposed by Chanson (2005) may be extended to wet-bed conditions (for initial water level < 0.36 tsunami bore height in our experimental set-up). Due to the limitations of experimental ranges in the laboratory, the validated numerical model can provide more results for wider experimental ranges for tsunami bore investigations. It was observed from numerical results that, tsunami bore height increases with the increase of reservoir water level; tsunami bore velocity decreases with the increased initial water level on the bed; as the initial water level on the bed gradually increases, the mean tsunami bore Froude number shows a downward trend.

Until recently, the selection of ballast water treatment (BWT) systems was based on a predetermined set of criteria that did not include evaluations for system utilization due to lack of experience. The experience-building phase for the systems began, especially with the entry of the Ballast Water Management Convention into force. For effective assessment and decision-making, the evaluations of expert seafarers responsible for using ballast water treatment systems on-board ships are of paramount importance. This study was completed by evaluating the experience and evaluations of 50 expert seafarers (24 deck personnel and 26 engine personnel) working in a Turkish maritime company in three phases to contribute to the decision-making and system evaluation processes: 1- The failure reports written by the ship personnel of the maritime company were examined, and bilateral interviews with expert seafarers working on these tankers were held; 2- an online questionnaire was prepared and presented to seafarers; 3Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to obtain a common perspective of the seafarers. In this study's first phase, 'ideal system characteristics' were determined. Based on these characteristics, an online questionnaire was prepared in the second phase of this study and presented to seafarers. In the third phase, a set of six criteria was developed, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to obtain the common perspective of 50 participants. Pairwise comparisons revealed that ‘Rare alarms and malfunctions’ was the most important criterion from the perspective of all seafarers and UV-type BWTSs were 1.76 times more preferable than the electrochemical (El-Chem) type BWTSs as a common approach.

A novel quantitative analysis employing the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of containership traffic in the Black Sea from 2018 to 2021 is performed. The study uses a matrix covering five ship size classes from A to E for four years of operation, from 2018 to 2021, accounting for ship traffic, CO2, fuel consumption (FC), shipping intensity, and eco and traffic efficiency. Only the first two principal factors are analysed because of their total variation weight. Shipping intensity, FC intensity, and CO2 intensity plays a significant role in the first factor, while Eco efficiency, FC efficiency, and Traffic efficiency are considered for the second factor. Notably, the set of parameters pertains to time and is strongly associated with DWT. Two principal components were identified, F1 and F2, where F1 integrates efficiency and intensity. At the same time, F2 separates the intensity from the efficiency conditional on the ship size and the year of operations. In the principal component F1 the activities of ships A and C differ from B, D and E, separating more efficiently from less efficiently used ships, and in F2, the activities of class sizes of ships C and D and E contrast A and B ships, distinguishing the big-size class ships from small ones. It was concluded that the most intensively used ships are the ship size classes C and D, and the most efficient are ship size classes A and B. The most intensive use of the ships was in 2020, followed by 2021, and the most efficient were in 2018, 2019. Based on the ship activities and using the Within-class variance, ships are grouped into two clusters of similar activities, where the first one, with lower variance and more homogeneous, includes only the ship size class A. The second one with a relatively large variance consists of the rest size of the ships. Linear relationships considering the intensity and efficiency are derived as a function of the main variables, where the factor loading represents the variable’s coefficient, given as a relative weight to any factor.

Along with developing high-speed craft technology, the planing hull is growing with modifications for better performance. One such technology is stepped hull, both single and double. Planing hull with steps allows the boat to run at a relatively low drag-lift ratio with lower frictional resistance due to reduced wetted area. In this study, the hull was modified with variations in the position of the double steps, which aimed to determine the effect of the first and second step positions on the total resistance, dynamic trim, and dynamic sinkage generated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Based on the analysis results, variations in the position of the stepped can change the hull performance. Shortening the distance between the two steps and moving both rearwards toward the transom can lower the total resistance. The dynamic trim and dynamic sinkage decreased as the position of the two steps was shifted further forward. An equation created in a non-dimensional form relates the positions of two steps to the desired results of total resistance, dynamic trim, and dynamic sinkage, namely: {(x1-x2)/L + (x1x2)/(LB)} × Fr∇, where x1 is distance the first step from transom, x2 is the distance of the second step, L is the length of the boat, B is the beam of the boat, and Fr∇ is the volume Froude number.

The high-temperature exhaust gases and the hot surfaces of the ejector device in marine gas turbines generate significant levels of infrared radiation. An appropriate nozzle structure can effectively lower the exhaust gas temperature and reduce the high-temperature radiation surface area, thereby minimizing external infrared radiation. In this study, a numerical simulation of the nozzle structure in the ejector device was conducted using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. By investigating the orthogonal combinations of nozzle inclination angles and the number of nozzles, the temperature distribution and flow characteristics under different operating conditions were analysed. The results showed that as the nozzle inclination angle increased, the entrainment coefficient (Ce) and the temperature ratio at the inlet and outlet (Rt) initially improved but then worsened. Simultaneously, the pressure loss coefficient (Cpl) increased with the inclination angle. The CRITIC weight method was employed to objectively allocate weights to Rt, Ce, and Cpl, determining the optimal solution. The results indicated that Rt and Cpl had significant and similar weights. The optimal solution was found in Case 10 (α = 5°, x = 4), with corresponding evaluation indices of Ce=2.38, Cpl=11.45, and =0.68. This study's findings are of great importance for enhancing the performance of marine gas turbines and reducing external infrared radiation.

Fiber-reinforced composites offer the benefits of high strength, high stiffness, lightweight, superior damping performance, and great design capability when compared to metal. The rigidity characteristics of the composite laminate in different directions may be adjusted to meet the requirements of the application by using appropriate materials and arranging the lay-up sequence. As a result, the purpose of this work is to explore the influence of lay-up type on propeller performance in terms of both hydrodynamic and structural performance. A transient fluid-structure interaction (FSI) algorithm based on the finite element method (FEM) combined with the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique is developed and used for the analysis of composite propellers. The hydrodynamic performance of the propeller is compared to that of a metallic material. Propeller propulsion efficiency, structural deformation, equivalent stress, and damage performance of different lay-up options under three different operating situations are compared. In addition, it is presented a parametric optimization approach to get the most appropriate lay-up program for composite blades with the best hydrodynamic properties and structural performance.

To evaluate the time-domain positioning performance of arctic marine structures, it is necessary to generate an ice load appropriate for the current position and heading of the structure. The position and orientation angle of a floating body continuously change with time. Therefore, an ice load is required for any attitude in the time-domain simulation. In this study, we present a fundamental technique for analyzing ice loads in the frequency domain based on data measured at various angles in the ice-water tank experiment. We perform spectral analysis instead of general FFT to analyze the ice load, which has the characteristics of a random signal. To generate the necessary ice load in the time domain, we must first interpolate the measured data in the frequency domain. Using the Blackman-Tukey method, we estimate the spectrum for the measured data, then process the data to generate the training set required for machine learning. Based on the results, we perform regression analysis by applying four representative techniques, including linear regression, random forest, or neural network, and compare the results with MSE. The deep neural network method performed best, but we provide further discussion for each model.

This paper presents a fast alternative optimization method for developing a reliable optimal controller that can handle system model parameter uncertainties. The source of uncertainty in this study is identified as hydrodynamic coefficients, which are prone to errors due to the challenges involved in obtaining accurate values. The proposed optimization method utilizes a complex nonlinear ship model provided by Maneuver Modelling Group (MMG) as the reference for the ship motion model. The optimization process is divided into two stages: a blind search followed by bisection optimization, to obtain a robust optimal controller. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, system response analysis and practical tests were performed on Step, M-Turn, and Doublet maneuvers. The results show that the controller parameters obtained from the proposed optimization method are capable of achieving high success rates in controlling a system with uncertain parameters.