Integrating Personnel Movement Simulation Into Preliminary Ship Design

Abstract

Traditionally, when designing a ship the driving issues are seen to be powering, stability, strength and seakeeping. Issues related to ship operations and evolutions are investigated later in the design process, within the constraint of a fixed layout. This can result in operational inefficiencies and limitations, excessive crew numbers and potentially hazardous situations. This paper summarises work by University College London and the University of Greenwich prior to the completion of a three year EPSRC funded research project to integrate the simulation of personnel movement into early stage ship design. This integration is intended to facilitate the assessment of onboard operations while the design is still highly amenable to change.The project brings together the University of Greenwich developed maritimeEXODUS personnel movement simulation software and the SURFCON implementation of the Design Building Block approach to early stage ship design, which originated with the UCL Ship Design Research team and has been implemented within the PARAMARINE ship design system produced by Graphics Research Corporation. Central to the success of this project is the definition of a suitable series of Performance Measures (PM) which can be used to assess the human performance of the design in different operational scenarios.The paper outlines the progress made on deriving the PM from human dynamics criteria measured in simulations and their incorporation into a Human Performance Metric (HPM) for analysis. It describes the production of a series of SURFCON ship designs, based on the Royal Navy's Type 22 Batch 3 frigate, and their analysis using the PARAMARINE and maritimeEXODUS software. Conclusions on the work to date and for the remainder of the project are presented addressing the integration of personnel movement simulation into the preliminary ship design process.

Concept Studies for a Joint Support Ship

“…These have ranged from investigations in support of requirement elucidation (for the UK MoD) through Design for Production studies involving VT Shipbuilders and Ferguson Shipbuilders (funded by the UK Shipbuilders & Shiprepairers Association) to ongoing studies into design for personnel movement on naval vessels (for the UK MoD and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council). The latter were reported in the RINA Human Factors Conference in March 2007 [7]. Probably the studies undertaken by the DRC that are most relevant to those that are the subject of this paper were reported to the 2004 and 2006 Warship Conferences.…”

A Stochastic Network Approach to Modelling Ship Evacuation

“…Maritime EXODUS is a flexible and useable tool that maps the layout topography, making it useful for evacuation studies; it has been used for naval studies in the evacuation modelling of QE Class Aircraft Carriers (Andrews, et al, 2008) and as a PHD Thesis by (Casarosa, 2008).…”

Survivability: The Human Element

“…In addition to the possibility of applying some form of quantification to recoverability, it should also be noted that in fact susceptibility and vulnerability will be influenced by Human Factors and an analysis which does not include the human as part of the system may be incomplete. For example, the use and state of watertight hatches during crucial evolutions has been examined using simulations [18], which will influence vulnerability.…”