naval architecture design services

Proteus Engineering's staff of naval architects have a broad range of experience in ship and yacht design. Listed below are some specific areas of experience and expertise. Please contact us to discuss how we can help you with your materials engineering needs.

Hullform Design and Fairing

Structural Design and Analysis

Hullform Design and Fairing

Hullform Modeling for the Ingalls Shipbuilding Norwegian New Frigate Concept Design

Proteus Engineering worked with Ingalls Shipbuilding, creating a FastShip model of the hull, appendages, and superstructure. This initial model was used to initialize other analyses of structure, stability, resistance and powering, maneuvering, and seakeeping. As the design progressed, the model was modified using the results of the other analyses to optimize the hullform for seakeeping and powering performance.

Hull Lofting Services

Using the customer's original hull lines (drawing, offset table, or digital file), Proteus has faired numerous hulls to be used for manufacturing and further analysis. These projects have ranged in size from 7 meter sportboats to aircraft carriers, and all types of vessels inbetween. Output can be in the form of full-scale frame drawings, CAD files, NURBS surface files, or tables of offsets.

Structural Design and Analysis

Liquid Natural Gas Tank MARITECH Project

Proteus Engineering provided analysis and design support in a MARITECH project that advanced the state-of-the-art in shipborne liquid natural gas (LNG) tanks. Marinex International, Inc., is the prime contractor for the multi-year project, which is aimed at developing and testing a light-weight LNG tank. Proteus analyzed the proprietary design using linear and non-linear finite element techniques, then suggested various design improvements. The design must consider ship motion loads and LNG cargo loads. The cargo loads are hydrostatic, hydrodynamic and cryogenic. The design must also consider the tank supports and the insulation system. Proteus worked with the developer of the concept, a structural consultant, the prime contractor and the American Bureau of Shipping to assist in the analysis and design. A follow-on phase of the project will include further analysis as well as model testing.

Canadian Patrol Frigate Full Ship MAESTRO-Based Structural Analysis

A&T/ETG’s Proteus Engineering Division (Proteus) prepared and analyzed a set of full ship MAESTRO models of the Canadian Patrol Frigate in support of St. John Shipbuilding. This work was performed under a firm fixed-price contract. These models were developed to study the ship’s overall structural response and to evaluate critical aspects of the structural design. MAESTRO was selected as the ship structural analysis software for several reasons: rapid, efficient modeling which significantly reduced the time and cost of the project; accurate structural representation of the full ship, including treatment of stiffeners within hybrid orthotropic plate elements for the finite element analysis and treatment explicitly for failure evaluations; comprehensive structural failure evaluations; and comprehensive presentation of results that facilitated complete assessment of the ship’s structural response to the design load conditions.

Full ship structural models were developed and analyzed in MAESTRO for both beginning of life and end of life conditions, where end of life conditions reflected the anticipated reduction in scantlings caused by corrosion. Major structural design aspects were evaluated, including the structural performance of continuous longitudinal bulkheads for which potential buckling problems might occur, large openings in the main deck which accommodate gas turbine intakes and uptakes, and major structural intersections such as superstructure/deckhouse intersections and attachments to the main deck. The unified fully three-dimensional MAESTRO model enabled evaluation of complex responses including effects such as shear lag. Structural analyses were performed for the ship’s major structural load criteria. These analyses included design wave bending loads using key design loading conditions. The MAESTRO analyses accurately represented all major loading parameters including fuel and other fluid tank loads, the ship’s longitudinal weight distribution, major point and/or local loads, and all principal ship’s structure. This comprehensive loading representation, coupled with the accurate and complete structural model, resulted in a high degree of confidence in the results.

The results included assessment of structural deflections, stress conditions in principal structural members, and structural failure evaluations, such as buckling of the ship’s stiffened panels, frames and girders. The analyses included the effects of superstructure-hull interaction, large openings in the strength deck, and other major features of the ship’s structure. MAESTRO’s structural failure evaluations quantitatively evaluated twenty-five specific failures at the principal structural member level (i.e., stiffened panels and their associated girder and frame segments). These evaluations included multiple modes of stiffened panel collapse such as stiffener tripping, combined buckling, and local buckling. These evaluations were performed for each structural member in the entire structure for each loadcase. The results were presented graphically in forms that enable immediate identification of structural problems caused by these complex failure modes. MAESTRO is the only structural analysis code that provides this comprehensive failure evaluation capability. For the Canadian Patrol Frigate these results were used to evaluate the ship’s structural integrity and to consider design changes for follow ship construction.

Royal Thai Navy Patrol Vessel – Structural Design and Optimization

Proteus assisted the Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC) to perform a full ship structural modeling, design and structural weight optimization of a 60 meter high speed Royal Thai Navy Patrol Vessel. This work was performed under a firm fixed price contract for ASC whereby Proteus provided training and on-site support to ASC personnel in Australia as well as support from our office in the United States. The patrol vessel was very high performance, with severe design loads, difficult speed/displacement objectives, and highly constrained naval architectural design requirements. MAESTRO was selected by the Royal Thai Navy and the Australian Submarine Corporation as the most effective means to ensure a safe, durable and high performance structural design which supported the significant number of additional design constraints on the patrol vessel. Proteus was brought into the project to ensure that MAESTRO was applied efficiently and with an optimal influence on the ship’s design.

Proteus, working in close coordination with ASC, developed a full ship MAESTRO model for the vessel based on an initial structural topology and initial scantlings. This model was then analyzed using design load conditions including maximum wave bending loads as well as local loads caused by slamming and green water on deck. Based on the deflection and stress results of the finite element analysis using MAESTRO, and on the structural failure evaluations from MAESTRO, the initial structural arrangement and scantlings were assessed and initial modifications were made prior to optimizing the vessel’s structure using MAESTRO. These initial design changes provided an improved global structure for the vessel from which to start MAESTRO’s structural optimization. MAESTRO’s optimization used the results of the structural failure evaluations as the constraints for the optimization process, and used a combination of least weight, least cost and lowest vertical center of gravity as the ‘objectives’ of the optimization. ASC specified the combination of these objectives that was best suited to this specific design project.

MAESTRO’s optimization used a set of structural plates and shapes specified by ASC which conformed to the structural scantlings from which the Thai shipyard wanted to build the ship. In its final design cycle, each of which revises scantlings towards achieving the design objectives, MAESTRO rounded all of the vessel’s plates and shapes to match those in the structural ‘library’, thereby achieving an optimized and producible design. In this final ‘standardization’ design cycle, some structure was rounded up and some rounded down, a final check of the design constraints was then performed by MAESTRO prior to completing the ‘convergence’ of the optimization process.

After initial structural modifications were input to the 60m Patrol Vessel model, MAESTRO’s optimization capability was run with design objectives emphasizing optimization/minimization of structural weight. The result of this optimization reengineering included a significant reduction of structural weight, with an elimination of structural failures.

Proteus and MAESTRO have had previous close associations with Australian organizations on similar projects. The Royal Australian Navy has used MAESTRO to reduce the weight of their Fremantle class patrol boats. The creator of MAESTRO, Professor Owen Hughes was previously an Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales, Australia.