New Accelerated Concept Design webinar

The webinar on Accelerated Concept Design – a way to automate and optimise the concept stage of the ship design process using genetic algorithms, will use Darwinian theory and 3D models and be led by NAPA and C-Job Naval Architects.

“The power to automate vital parts of the design process represents a huge step forward for vessel designers,” said Thijs Muller, lead naval architect at C-Job. “Instead of manually optimising parts of the design process, virtual ‘evolution’ finds the ‘fittest’ designs automatically. This means that designers can be more confident that their designs will deliver the results they need, and gives them back more time to explore new ideas and concepts.”

Algorithm automation

In this Darwinian process, successive ‘generations’ of ship designs are automatically created by the algorithm; each generation inheriting the most successful characteristics of its predecessors. This removes uncertainty within the whole ship design process – with the aim of speeding up the design process and giving ship-owners more confidence in their final design.

In contrast to traditional methods, where typically only small changes to existing models are possible, Accelerated Concept Design enables C-Job Naval Architects to explore new directions with greater confidence, the company said.

C-Job and NAPA are collaborating on the development of this methodology, using NAPA software to generate concept designs within shorter time spans. They are also working on software developments that will deliver more accurate estimations of construction weight, building costs and performance.

NAPA and C-Job will present their research and its applications during the free webinar on 13 and 14 December.