A simplified fluid structure interaction model for the assessment of ship hard grounding

The structural damage of ships in navigational accidents is influenced by the hydrodynamic properties of surrounding water. Fluid structure interactions (FSI) in way of grounding contact can be idealized by combining commercial FEA tools and specialized hydrodynamic solvers. Despite the efficacy of these simulations, the source codes idealizing FSI are not openly available, computationally expensive and subject to limitations in terms of physical assumptions. This paper presents a unified FSI model for the assessment of ship crashworthiness following ship hard grounding. The method uses spring elements for the idealization of hydrostatic restoring forces in 3 DoF (heave, pitch, roll) and distributes the added masses in 6 DoF on the nodal points in way of contact. Comparison of results against the method of Kim et al. (2021) for the case of a barge and a Ro–Ro passenger ship demonstrate excellent idealization of ship dynamics. It is concluded that the method could be useful for rapid assessment of ship grounding scenarios and associated regulatory developments.

Shipbuilding capacity optimization using shipbuilding demand forecasting model

The shipbuilding industry has been drastically affected by demand fluctuations. Currently, it faces intense global competition and a crisis because of an imbalance between supply and demand. This imbalance of supply and demand is caused by an excess of shipbuilding capacity. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has considered adjusting the shipbuilding capacity to reduce the imbalance based on the demand forecast. On the other hand, demand forecast of shipbuilding is a complex issue because the demand is influenced indirectly by adjustments in shipbuilding capacity. Therefore, it is important to examine the influence of construction capacity adjustments on the future demand of ships based on demand forecasting for the sustainable growth of the shipbuilding industry. In this study, shipbuilding capacity adjustment is considered using a proposed simulation system based on a demand-forecasting model. Additionally, the system dynamics model of a previous study is improved by developing a ship price-prediction model for evaluating the shipbuilding capacity-adjustment scenario. We conduct simulations using the proposed demand-forecasting model and system to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed model and system. Furthermore, several shipbuilding capacity-adjustment scenarios are discussed using the proposed system.