Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
minimizing their risk in this crucial phase of a ship building process. A central tool
in achieving this goal is computer simulation in order to identify which components
represent the most cost effective design elements for the ship under construction.
85% of the total costs are fixed after the initial design
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Initial Design
Product Definition
3-D-Model, Detail Design, Production Drawings
Request
Contract
Start of production
Launching
Delivery
Fig. 10.1:
Design cost versus building cost (Schrödter and Gosch 2008)
Before a ship goes from design to production many requirements have to be met: On
the one hand, the customer sets parameters, like capacity, manoeuvrability, speed,
fuel consumption, etc. On the other hand a predefined set of rules regarding national
and international safety and usability standards have to be fulfilled, e.g. stiffness,
vibration, fatigue, noise, fire and sea safety. It is a difficult task to comply with all
these requirements and still produce a ship quickly and cost efficiently.
The Business Experiment described here demonstrated its success by showing
how Grid technology can help in the design and simulation of fire safety of a new
component technology. The so-called sandwich technology is a composite mate-
rial consisting of two metal plates with a foam kernel. Depending on the materials
used on each layer the behaviour of the composite material varies. The sandwich
technology used at the shipyard was developed by supplier industries such that a
close co-operation between the engineers at the shipyard and the supplier had to be
supported.
Simulation of fire security and heat transfer of this new composite material
required computational power, which was not directly available at the engineer's
