Concept Design of a Damen Yacht-Support Vessel with the help of Packing

Abstract

This thesis discusses the concept development of a 90 meter Yacht Support Vessel (YSV) with the help of TU
Delft Ship Synthesis Model (SSM) called packing.
Speed, together with a considerable amount of demanding and conflicting characteristics, such as: the
capacity of storing two helicopters and at the same time being able of taking around large and bulky tenders,
are crucial aspects of this type of ships. Damen Shipyard, leading this market, collaborated to this study. In
particular, the object case-study would ideally represent the flag-ship of the gamma for the shipyard, emphasizing and taking to extreme all this type of ship features. In addition, the vessel should provide storage
for spare parts and provisions, accommodations for extra-crew and staff but also have fully dedicated guest
areas.
This work discusses the aptitude of the packing approach of dealing with this particular ship design problem. The methodology developed by TU Delft can rapidly generate a large and diverse set of thousands of
different feasible low detail ship designs. The dissertation is composed by two main parts: the first one is
focused on using this methodology to develop a diverse design space to explore various possibilities before
converging on a selected few to further define later in the thesis. The second part provides the elaboration of
the most promising design picked up in the first phase.
The packing-based ship description consists of five elements (objects, positioning space, overlap rules,
design changes, packing process) representing the Ship Synthesis Model (SSM) that together enable the description and parametric variation of a ship during early stage design. By creating multiple feasible design
solutions, the task of the naval architect is focused on analyzing, evaluating and deciding rather than creating
different options. Thus, it is proposed to study the feasibility of multiple different options and, by analyzing
the more relevant conflicts, it will be possible to drive the choice towards the most promising design. In this
work are highlighted the design decisions undertaken by packing on the options modeled, comments and
explanations are given on the rationale that helped in cutting the design space represented by thousands of
different design concepts. Consequently, it is illustrated how the down-selection from a multitude of options
to only few solutions was carried out.
The most promising design is improved through some of the steps typical of the ship design spiral with
the aim of satisfying the imposed design requirements. Several rounds of the ship design spiral are undergone
bringing gradually to the final outcome. These successive steps led to the fulfillment of all the non-negotiable
requirements set in the design brief, successfully developing the 90 meter concept. The description of the
main characteristics of the ultimate design closes the second phase of the thesis before conclusions and reflections on the overall project are discussed