Navy Shipboard Research Articles

Task Managed Watchstanding - Concepts for 21st Century Naval Operations

Watchstanding in a command center includes work requirements for U.S. Navy shipboard crews to complete time-critical and externally paced task assignments in an accurate and timely manner. Requirements for optimized crew sizes in newer ships are forcing system designers to give increased consideration to task and workload demands in a multiple task work environment. The multi-task environment is characterised by multiple mission job demands and parallel task goals of varying time duration. Design concepts for a watchstation work environment were created which support a variety of cognitive and visual requirements for multiple tasks. The user support tools include a concept of imbedded “Task management” within the watchstation software. This paper presents the requirements and design concepts for imbedded task management user support, and the implications for improved user performance.

Navy's CFC & Halon Elimination Program

ABSTRACT The domestic production of the most powerful Ozone‐Depleting Substances (ODSs) has permanently ceased and the abundant supplies of a number of inexpensive refrigerants, fire‐fighting agents, and solvents, once taken for granted, are now a thing of the past The Navy's original strategy of conserving ODSs, converting systems and processes where feasible, relying on strategic reserves where necessary, and developing “ozone‐friendly” equipment for new‐design surface ships and submarines is succeeding.The purpose of this paper is to document the Navy's efforts to date relative to combating the threat to uninterrupted Fleet operations posed by the cessation of ODS production. Specifically, this paper addresses the Navy's shipboard conversion programs for air‐conditioning and refrigeration (AC&R) systems, the development of next‐generation AC&R systems, the selection of halon substitutes for new‐construction fire‐fighting systems, and the Navy's alternative to CFC‐113 in the cleaning of critical oxygen systems.

Blackwater and Graywater on U.S. Navy Ships: Technical Challenges and Solutions

AbstractIn anticipation of more stringent environmental regulations, the increasing costs of waste disposal, and the need for naval combatants to operate unimpeded in littoral waters, the U.S. Navy has identified the need to develop technologies which are appropriate for the control and treatment of blackwater and graywater. This paper will describe the status of development efforts by the Carderock Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (CDNSWC) and its supporting contractors, under sponsorship of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) and the Office of Naval Research. The challenge was to develop treatment systems that meet Navy shipboard requirements for affordability, compactness, low manning/maintenance, high reliability and safety, and EM, noise, vibration and shock. Membrane ultrafiltration based systems, incorporating aerobic biological pre‐treatment and ultraviolet light post‐treatment disinfection, have been developed to meet these requirements. Both external and in‐tank membrane systems will be described in terms of performance, system operation, and space and weight advantages.

Blackwater and Graywater on U.S. Navy Ships: Technical Challenges and Solutions

ABSTRACT In anticipation of more stringent environmental regulations, the increasing costs of waste disposal, and the need for naval combatants to operate unimpeded in littoral waters, the U.S. Navy has identified the need to develop technologies which are appropriate for the control and treatment of blackwater and graywater. This paper will describe the status of development efforts by the Carderock Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (CDNSWC) and its supporting contractors, under sponsorship of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) and the Office of Naval Research. The challenge was to develop treatment systems that meet Navy shipboard requirements for affordability, compactness, low manning/maintenance, high reliability and safety, and EM, noise, vibration and shock. Membrane ultrafiltration based systems, incorporating aerobic biological pre‐treatment and ultraviolet light post treatment disinfection, have been developed to meet these requirements. Both external and in‐tank membrane systems will be described in terms of performance, system operation and space and weight advantages.

96/05424 Identifying and evaluating alternatives to CFC-114 for navy shipboard chillers

The isomers HFC-236ea and HFC-236fa are potential non-ozone depleting replacements for CFC-114 and have completed preliminary toxicity evaluations, flammability tests, material compatibility tests, and engineering performance tests

Military Medicine Has NATO Role in Balkans

MILITARY MEDICAL support is available to the approximately 20 000 US Implementation Force ground troops who are spreading out along North Atlantic Treat Organization peacekeeping corridors in the former Yugoslavia. A US Army medical brigade already stationed in Europe is playing a key role. Other medical resources include the US Navy's shipboard hospital beds and the US Air Force's aeromedical evacuation system. As the US troops began to deploy, President Clinton said there could be incidents with people [associated with various factions of the civil war] who still have not given up their hatred. The White House added that poor roads, severe weather, and millions of still-undetected land mines add to the hazards. While US troops are moving into the northeastern Bosnia area around Tuzla, the 74th Medical Group—Provisional from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, has turned over United Nations (UN) hospital facilities at Zagreb, Croatia, to military

Military medicine has NATO role in Balkans

MILITARY MEDICAL support is available to the approximately 20 000 US Implementation Force ground troops who are spreading out along North Atlantic Treat Organization peacekeeping corridors in the former Yugoslavia. A US Army medical brigade already stationed in Europe is playing a key role. Other medical resources include the US Navy's shipboard hospital beds and the US Air Force's aeromedical evacuation system. As the US troops began to deploy, President Clinton said there "could be incidents with people [associated with various factions of the civil war] who still have not given up their hatred." The White House added that poor roads, severe weather, and millions of still-undetected land mines add to the hazards. While US troops are moving into the northeastern Bosnia area around Tuzla, the 74th Medical Group—Provisional from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, has turned over United Nations (UN) hospital facilities at Zagreb, Croatia, to military

Usability and Performance Testing of Hand-held Data-entry Devices for Navy Shipboard Damage Control and Fire-fighting Environments

Portable, hand-held, data-entry devices were evaluated for intended use by shipboard engineering repair team personnel for improving on-scene casualty reporting of damage control and fire-fighting efforts. Current on-scene reporting methods use pre-formatted damage control messages, hand carried from the scene of the casualty to the repair lockers, and often rely on two-way radios for rapid transmission of critical casualty information. During the initial reporting period, this process is often confusing, time-late, and sometimes ambiguous or error-prone. Five off-the-shelf data entry devices were tested for usability and performance for data input and display of casualty information in a laboratory setting at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, with follow-on field testing done by damage control and fire-fighting personnel assigned to Fleet Training Center, San Diego and Detachment Treasure Island and the Afloat Training Group, Pacific. Demonstration of these devices, lessons learned on usability testing and building of cooperative research networks between users and the training community will be described.

Intelligent Machinery Control Integration

ABSTRACTA growing concern about the shrinking size of the U.S. Navy budget and the pool from which selections will be made to “man” U. S. Navy shipboard systems has led to investigations on achieving improvements in affordability and operational effectiveness. One such investigation has resulted in the development of the Standard Monitoring and Control System (SMCS), a modular, open architecture control system which includes the control system components for propulsion, electric plant, auxiliaries, and damage control. The first major technology upgrade to SMCS will entail the insertion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies into HM&E monitoring and control applications. The Intelligent Machinery Control Integration Task (IMCI) was established to provide a structural approach for this major technology upgrade. As part of the first phase of IMCI, an identification of intelligent control requirements, an assessment of AI technologies, and a survey of intelligent control applications were performed. This paper lists those HM&E‐related shipboard operational requirements from which intelligent machinery control requirements will be identified. Also, there is an initial assessment of AI‐related reasoning and the following AI technologies, knowledge‐based systems, fuzzy logic, neural nets, and genetic algorithms. The survey provided some insight into applying AI technologies to SMCS shipboard operational requirements.

Upper Respiratory Disease in Deployed U.S. Navy Shipboard Personnel

A study was conducted to determine the risk of upper respiratory disease among deployed U.S. Navy shipboard personnel. Between January and June 1989, a Patient Encounter Form was used to collect disease information from 10 U.S. Navy ships. Patients with a diagnosis of upper respiratory infection (URI) on initial sick-call visit were used in this study. Information on time spent in various ports and time at sea for each of the 10 ships was also collected. A classification scheme was developed to permit daily estimates of URI rates and to indicate whether the ship was in port or at sea. Of 967 cases of URI, 64.4% occurred while at sea, with an average daily rate of 0.5/1,000 crew members; 35.4% of the cases occurred while in port, with an average daily rate of 0.4/1,000 crew members. There was an increase in URI rates after 9 days at sea or in port. These data suggest that there are defined periods of increased transmission of upper respiratory infections aboard ships, both at sea and in port.

Toward Automated Interpretation of Satellite Imagery for Navy Shipboard Applications

The U.S. Navy has plans to develop an automated system to analyze satellite imagery aboard its ships at sea. Lack of time for training, in combination with frequent personnel rotations, precludes the building of extensive imagery interpretation expertise by shipboard personnel. A preliminary design starts from pixel data from which clouds are classified. An image segmentation is performed to assemble and isolate cloud groups, which are then identified (e.g., as a cold front) using neural networks. A combination of neural networks and expert systems is subsequently used to transform key information about the identified cloud patterns as inputs to an expert system that provides sensible weather information, the ultimate objective of the imagery analysis.

Halon 1301 Test Gas Simulants

ABSTRACTAD new and retrofit installations of Halon 1301 total flooding fire protection systems in U.S. Navy shipboard machinery spaces require an acceptance discharge test. The primary reason for this testing is the verification of system design and performance (discharge time, initial concentration, maintenance of concentration, etc.). It is desirable to use a simulant instead of Halon 1301 in these tests in view of its contribution to stratospheric ozone depletion.Sulfur hexafluoride, SF6, was identified as a possible simulant on the basis of its similarity to Halon 1301 in physical and chemical properties. A detailed investigation was performed on the use of SF6 as a simulant, which led to a full scale evaluation on board the USS Chancellorsville (CG‐62). This investigation demonstrated that sulfur hexafluoride is an excellent simulant for Halon 1301 in acceptance discharge tests of total flooding fire protection systems.As a direct consequence, the U.S. Navy has begun to use SF6 in their acceptance discharge tests. The transition from testing with Halon 1301 to testing with SF6 was completed by March 1990.

Perceived Quality of Life and Health-Related Correlates Among Men Aboard Navy Ships

The objectives of this study are twofold: First, findings are presented to provide a baseline assessment of perceived quality of life (QOL) in a group of 430 Navy shipboard men. As part of this objective, Navy shipboard QOL ratings are compared with those of a U.S. national sample to provide a perspective for interpreting Navy responses. Second, the study identifies health-related factors associated with QOL. In both the Navy and national samples, QOL evaluations are generally positive and show considerable variation. Navy shipboard QOL evaluations are higher than civilian evalua- tions on items addressing satisfaction with self and the ability to adjust to changes, but lower on items assessing satisfaction with work and personal life. A consistent association exists between better health/fitness and higher QOL, including satisfaction with one's Navy job. Consistent correlates of perceived QOL are self-ratings of health and physical fitness, perceptions of not being overweight, and lower reporting of psyc...

Hydraulic performance tests of Halon 1301 test gas simulants

All new and retrofit installations of Halon 1301 total flooding fire protection systems in U.S. Navy shipboard machinery spaces require an acceptance discharge test. The primary reason for this testing is the verification of system design and performance (discharge time, initial concentration, maintenance of concentration, etc.). It is desirable to use a simulant instead of Halon 1301 in these tests in view of its contribution to stratospheric ozone depletion. Two candidate simulants, sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) and chlorodifluoromethane (R-22 or Halon 121), were evaluated on the basis of flow through the piping networks of both modular and banked systems. Two modular systems, with differing fill densities, and six banked systems, varying in complexity from a two-nozzle balanced system to a four-nozzle unbalanced system, were used in this evaluation. Sulfur hexafluoride was found to discharge at a similar rate to Halon 1301 while R-22 was found to discharge at a faster rate. The division of flow between branches in the piping networks were similar for both simulants and Halon 1301. Together with previous work on leakage from an enclosure and initial mixing, these tests have shown that sulfur hexafluoride is an excellent simulant for Halon 1301 in acceptance discharge tests of total flooding fire protection systems. These conclusions will need to be confirmed in full-scale tests. The material presented here is extracted from a longer report that is available from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375.

Procedure Modeling and Performance Prediction for Navy Surface Ship Consoles

Very little human performance data has been collected for current navy shipboard consoles. This project identified a source of user behavioral data through the reduction and analysis of data captured with the Aegis shipboard data extraction programs. The data was used to construct a preliminary human performance database for a combat team. This database was used as input to a procedural network model, providing an analysis tool which allows task construction and performance prediction without the difficulty associated with acquiring ship or land-based combat system time. The database and models are currently being evaluated for their predictive validity.

Smoking and Physical Fitness among Navy Shipboard Men

Smoking and Physical Fitness among Navy Shipboard Men

Dietary Factors Related to Physical Fitness among Navy Shipboard Men

Abstract This study examines the relationship between habitual dietary practices and performance on the physical readiness test required of active duty Navy personnel. Participants were 1,013 men (mean age = 26.2 years) stationed aboard nine Navy ships. The men completed a self-report survey of lifestyle and dietary habits and were evaluated on four tests of physical fitness: 1.5-mile Run, Sit-ups, Sit-reach, and Percent Body Fat. A standardized Overall Fitness score was also computed for each person. Results indicated that the participants tended to skip breakfast, ingest moderate amounts of caffeine, and favor a high-fat, low-fiber diet. Fitness scores were associated with a number of dietary variables, including caffeine intake, between-meal snacking, and overeating (all negatively related to fitness, p <.01), and having a general "nutrition orientation" (positively related to fitness, p <.001). The relationships were confounded by the influence of age, exercise, and smoking, but even after controlling for these, diet was a significant predictor of fitness (p <.001).

Development of Rigid Inflatable Boats for U.S. Navy Shipboard Use

The Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) was originally developed as a gasoline outboard powered craft for surf zone rescue use by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in the United Kingdom. The objectives were to provide a craft with extremely good stability characteristics to operate in steep onshore breaking waves without capsizing, and to improve the safety of operations alongside other vessels. Open ocean rescue and boarding applications were of interest to the U.S. Coast Guard because of the inherent stability and alongside safety of the RIB. Subsequent feasibility studies by the U.S. Navy indicated that the RIB would be superior in performance to the present 26-ft motor whaleboat, and could also reduce topside weight. The Navy opted for diesel inboard power for the RIB's designated to be carried aboard combatant ships. A diesel-powered RIB was procured for concept evaluation by the U.S. Navy, and has undergone a series of trials and tests to establish smooth-and rough-water performance characteristics. The data acquired confirmed the theoretical performance predicted during the feasibility studies. This first RIB was deployed on a U.S. Navy DDG-993 Class ship utilizing an existing single-point davit. During that deployment, the RIB was launched and retrieved successfully at ship's speeds up to 12 knots. Early indications are that this development program will result in a new ship's boat and an accompanying davit system which will provide the Fleet with a safe, high-performance craft which will greatly enhance operational capability and safety, and substantially reduce topside weight. The enthusiasm of test and Fleet personnel who have operated the RIB attests to its superior performance and to a high degree of probability for success of the program.

U.S. NAVY SHIPBOARD ENERGY R&amp;D ‐ AN OVERVIEW

ABSTRACTThe U.S. Navy shipboard energy situation is presented both in terms of historical, current, and projected postures. R&amp;D Programs to minimize the impact of diminishing fossil fuel resources while ensuring full operational readiness are described. Near term efforts are directed at the achievement of the 1985 Chief of Naval Operations goal of twenty percent reduction in fossil fuel consumption per underway steaming hour, and they are intended primarily for the conventional steam‐powered Fleet which presently comprises eighty‐four percent on an installed horsepower basis. Longer range efforts attempt to facilitate the goal of a more energy‐efficient future Fleet in terms of new construction ships. Alternate Fuels Programs are structured to provide a capability to operate on future fuels which are readily available, and they include development of guidelines for the use of a broad range of petroleum‐base fuels as well as the qualification of snythetic fuels derived from coal, oil shale, and tar sands.

DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND MODERNIZA TION OF SHIPS WITH THE SHIPBOARD DATA MULTIPLEX SYSTEM (SDMS)

ABSTRACTRockwell International is currently under Navy contract to fabricate the Engineering Development Model (EDM) of the Shipboard Data Multiplex System (SDMS) for general data transfer aboard surface ships and submarines. The application of SDMS significantly reduces hardware such as cables, switchboards, and Signal Data Converters (SDC), and it provides the capability to add many desired features which are currently not practicable.In applying SDMS to a specific ship, a massive amount of signal data must be considered. The Application Design Automation Program (ADAP) is a set of computer programs that have been developed to accomplish this task. ADAP com bines signal population data, ships configuration data, and SDMS hardware characteristics to produce an SDMS configuration layout together with documentation necessary to analyze, evaluate, and implement the system. Specific outputs include hardware requirements, system layout, and interface requirements including wire list information. The Timing, Event and Load Simulation (TELS) Program simulates SDMS and provides performance data (system capacity, throughput rate, transport delays) for any system configuration.Conventional SDCs can be elimianted from Navy shipboard systems when SDMS is used. SDMS provides the necessary data distribution, signal conversion, and computer interface. In addition, many functions of the conventional switchboards can be performed within SDMS, thus reducing the size or eliminating conventional switchboards. Very small switch‐bomb will provide the necessary control of data distribution.With SDMS, an automatic and continuous Noise and Vibration Monitoring (NVM) capability is readily available. The automated NVM function will enhance the safety, operation, and maintenance of the ship. Problems with machinery or excessive self‐noise generation will be detected much sooner, and corrective action implemented on a timely basis.