A new approach to an integrated CAD method for surface ship design

The objective of this paper is to introduce a new design approach of an integrated CAD method for surface ship design. This new approach is called the Concurrent Integrated CAD (CICAD) System. Instead of following the traditional spiral approach, the proposed work establishes a concurrent computer-aided design procedure. As the design process proceeds, all analyses would be carried out concurrently on the progressing design, to provide an overview of its performance. The paper starts with a brief discussion about the challenges encountered by the present shipbuilding industry. This is to identify the needs of this industry in the foreseeable future. The authors point out the problems of the ship design process, and investigate the impacts and trends of applying CAD methods, in order to justify the new approach. Other innovations of the ship design process, like Simulation Based Design (SBD), Decision-based Design (DBD), etc. are also discussed. The paper illustrates the conceptual and function models of CICAD. It demonstrates how the new approach is being developed, with yacht design as an example; and it estimates the significance of this concurrent approach. Further work is underway to refine the new model prior to the system development.