www.marinelink.com 19
T
o support designers and engineers
in evaluating design concepts
more effi ciently, MARIN has de-
veloped the hydrodynamic suites QSHIP
and QPROP.
Hydrodynamic considerations have
a great impact on the operational per-
formance of a ship during its lifetime.
For this reason, it is important to inte-
grate hydrodynamic analyses as early
as possible into the ship design phase.
Improving powering, seakeeping and
maneuvering performance may have a
major impact on design aspects such as
the capabilities and General Arrange-
ment plan. Improving hydrodynamic
performance at more advanced stages
of the design is hardly possible. This led
MARIN to develop the hydrodynamic
suites QSHIP and QPROP.
Both QSHIP and QPROP are Quaestor
based, which is a computational model-
ing system applied in a variety of de-
sign and analysis applications in the
shipbuilding and offshore industry. The
workfl ow of MARIN’s Quaestor-based
suites provides guidance and ease-of-use
for complete chains of pre-processing,
hydrodynamic calculations and post-
processing.
QPROP is an advanced propeller
design and analysis suite. The required
resistance and propulsion characteristics
for the displacement ships are predicted
by the integrated DESP program. DESP
predictions are based on formulas ob-
tained from regression analyses on data
from MARIN model experiments and
sea trials.
QPROP greatly reduces the time spent
on iterative propeller design, analysis
and reporting activities as all of the in-
corporated tools make use of the same
pool of project related input data and (in-
termediate) results.
QSHIP forms a workfl ow around
the frequency domain program SHIP-
MO for the prediction of ship motions
in a seaway. SHIPMO is based on 2D
linear diffraction theory – known as strip
theory - and theoretical empirical formu-
lations of the viscous roll damping co-
effi cients. The Response Amplitude Op-
erators (RAO), as a result of a SHIPMO
calculation, can be visualised with the
RAO viewer, which is also included in
QSHIP. With the integrated, Operability
Viewer the user can easily see the effects
of climate, sailing direction, speed and
any predefi ned criteria.
Both suites provide automated data
exchange between the included software
and reduce the time-to-market for new
designs. With hydrodynamic tools, de-
signers can focus on analysing a variety
of design concepts in a convenient and
effi cient way.
EYE ON DESIGN
The Author
Arno Bons is senior project manager
at the Maritime Simulation & Software
Group of MARIN, the Maritime Research
Institute Netherlands.
e: a.bons@marin.nl
www.marin.nl
Hydrodynamic Software Suites
Making Design Concept Evaluation More Effi cient
BY ARNO BONS
MR #5 (18-25).indd 19 5/1/2014 10:11:55 AM
Digital Wave Publishing