ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a method to optimize hull girder cross section scantlings using three objectives: structural weight, vertical center of gravity and structural safety. In practice, once the hull envelope and structural arrangements are made to meet the operational requirements, the structural scantlings are initialized by modifying existing designs and subsequently checked by using local design criteria. The scantlings of a design cluster are then determined by the weakest panel of the design cluster. The optimization routine has been improved such that users can choose between optimizing the individual scantlings as described herein or take a more practical approach and restrict the choice of plating thickness, stiffener and framing scantlings to the “structural warehouse” that the shipyard normally stocks. The chapter examines a hierarchically multi-level collaborative optimization procedure was successfully used to optimize a large and complex structure on the basis of weight, safety and vertical center of gravity.
