E.U. Initiates Ship Design Software Project

The European Commission has allocated 6.2 million Euros ($7 million) to the three-year research project SHIPLYS (Ship Lifecycle Software Solutions).

The Welding Institute hosted the first SHIPLYS project meeting that took place in Cambridge, U.K. last week.

The project is a response to the needs of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in naval architecture, shipbuilding and shipowning, who in order to survive in the world market require to:

improve their capability to reduce the time and costs of design and production
develop the ability to reliably produce better ship concepts through virtual prototyping
meet the increasing requirements for life cycle cost analysis), environmental assessments, risk assessments and end-of-life considerations as differentiators.

The calculation and modelling to achieve this are difficult and time consuming, especially for SMEs without a large overhead of trained staff and tools. This poses challenges in integrating data between incompatible tools and formats for different design stages: conceptual hull design; the finite element calculations feeding preliminary and detailed designs; and virtual prototyping simulation models.

This is coupled with the lack of an industry specific lifecycle modelling technique, hindered by the lack of information to support reliable decision-making. SHIPLYS aims to address these challenges for the benefit of various stakeholders involved.

The SHIPLYS consortium comprises of 12 participants from seven countries who bring together a mix of stakeholder organizations and corresponding expertise. The participants include shipyards, a classification society, research institutes and industrial organizations that develop and provide technologies used in structural design and production:

TWI Ltd (U.K.)

FUNDACION CENTRO TECNOLOGICO SOERMAR (Spain)

Atlantec Enterprise Solutions GmbH (Germany)

University of Strathclyde (U.K.)

Astilleros de Sandander SA (Spain)

National Technical University of Athens NTUA (Greece)

Instituto Superior Tecnico (Portugal)

Varna Maritime Limited (Bulgaria)

Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd (U.K.)

Alveus L.L.C (Croatia)

BMT Group Ltd (U.K.)

Lloyd’s Register EMEA IPS (U.K.)

http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/eu-initiates-ship-design-software-project