Design of Longitudinal Beam Layout on a Curved Shell Based on the Production-Oriented Design Concept
A VLCC (very large crude oil carrier) has approximately 1000 curved longitudinal beams, many of which have three-dimensional complicated curvatures. Due to the shortage of highly skilled workers and the need to keep costs down, production and structural designers have worked to reduce the number of such beams. In order to meet the requirements of production, the authors' company has attempted several design approaches for the longitudinal beam layout to reduce the number of beams that have complicated curvature. Recently, through the application of a computer-aided design system, which has been improved for shipbuilding based on the Calma's system, a new design method for the longitudinal beam layout has been successfully developed. A significant number of beams with a twisted configuration have been eliminated and replaced with beams of simpler, two-dimensional shapes. This paper shows the transition of these design approaches, and the application of the new design to building a VLCC.