In December 2005, the International Association of Class Societies (IACS) Council adopted the Common Structural Rules (CSR) for Bulk Carriers. This new standard applies to all bulk carriers, single or double hull, longer than 90 metres.
The new rules entered into force on 1 April 2006 and only weeks later, DNV Software can proudly announce its support with a new version of Nauticus Hull. This standard will apply to all such vessels for which a contract for construction is signed on or after this date.
The new rule requirements confirm the move towards more computerisation of the rule formulations and structural assessments. Hence, good software support has become even more critical for ship designers to be industry-compliant and for Class to provide timely and effective support to its customers.
In response to this, Nauticus Hull has yet again undergone a major upgrade to provide efficient support for the new common structural rules. As compartments are conceptual objects representing closed volumes in a structure, they are now defined for the whole length of the vessel and subsequently stored in a new common ship server. Section scantlings will use this inform-ation and the user will thus not have to re-define compartment in every section scantling analysis. Load content can also be applied to the compartments for various load cases together including filling height.
The new common structural rules will force more users to carry out finite element analysis of the cargo holds, and one of the overall goals has therefore been to improve the design process with a higher degree of quality. The compartment data and the loads definitions are used for the CSR bulk finite element analysis, and this is also where the users will see the most significant improve-ment in the new version of Nauticus Hull.
This enhancement has been achieved by using Brix Explorer to incorporate GeniE and Nauticus Hull into one common framework. GeniE has traditionally been a modelling and analysis tool for offshore structures, and it has undergone a significant upgrade to accommodate the requirements needed for marine structures, such as applying loads to curved plates. In addition to the new modelling features, the user will also benefit by having integrated meshing (see the figure) and automatic application of the rule loads available in the same workspace. This enables the user to iteratively perform strength assessments and generate the results far more efficiently than in the past.
This new upgrade of Nauticus Hull has brought forward a signifi-cantly more userfriendly system compared to the traditional modelling environment in Nauticus Hull where multiple graphical user interfaces and programs were involved to obtain the desired results. DNV Software is so confident in this new design approach that we also plan to introduce this for the common structural rules for tanker vessels during 2006.