Impact of mission modules on naval ship design

Abstract

This project identifies the impact of adopting the mission modules approach to naval ship designs. The work goes through the definition of the mission modules – analysing the most representative modules of the most used mission packages – the definition of the range of displacement and ship’s size and type – analysing the most representative navies – and finally the definition of the ship design configuration – using generic hullforms and general arrangement. The definition analyses reached three different naval ship designs a Patrol Vessel of 500ton, an Offshore Patrol Vessel of 2000ton, and a Frigate of 5000ton. Each vessel was designed with four configurations Traditional, ASW, ASuW, and MW, and an additional configuration without modules was also tested. All configurations were assessed by Stability, Survivability, Operability, and Cost analysis to understand the impact of each mission package on the naval ship design. The performed analyses identified the impact of adopting the mission modules approach on the three tested naval ship designs, considering primary and secondary impacts. The Primary Impact refers to the hull changes being space/layout, structure, and stability. On the other hand, the secondary consists of the systems and logistics impact being auxiliary power, costs, and crew . This work also confirmed that the impacts have different intensities when looking at ship’s size, which is one of the main drivers of the mission modules approach.