ABSTRACT
Naval ships have significantly longer lifecycles relative to the evolving global strategic environment and technology refresh rates. Therefore, ships may be operated differently to the original requirements, or new technologies may need to be integrated into the original design over its lifecycle. One strategy to manage such changes is batch building. To accommodate design changes in batches of a class build program, ship design flexibility needs to be factored into the acquisition processes. Key attributes of ship design flexibility include structural performance, particularly the fatigue life, and stability performance. This paper presents a method for naval ship design flexibility assessment to support the adoption of batch building strategies. A case study demonstrates the effectiveness of the method, to evaluate the flexibility of naval ship design options for early life-cycle decisions. The work supports navies to maximise the capability of their fleets in an unpredictable and dynamic environment.
