A Novel Submarine Design Method - Based on technical, economical and operational factors of influence

Doctoral thesis, 2014

The thesis work, with the openly published journal and conference papers, is motivated by the ambition to interact over time with the scientific community in the development of a novel coherent submarine design method to regain momentum in Swedish submarine computer aided Simulation Based Design (SBD). The work was initially stimulated by an early observation in our submarine engineering community, that the existing knowledge of naval architecture and systems theory including cost prediction and operational analysis was not coherently utilised for the design of Naval Integrated Complex System (NICS), hence the need for a coherent approach. The work is based on the idea that a coherent method works better by generating reliable information for the decision makers early in a project. The problem was to develop a user-oriented method that fully utilises existing knowledge in the submarine engineering community and reaches acceptance by submarine design engineers and the customers and recognition from the scientific community. There are four main contributions to the coherent method in this thesis. Firstly, there is an integrated domain driven design approach for a technical description of the design object, the related system cost and system effect. Secondly, the uses of a generic design object to stimulate the operational analysis simulation and from there extract tactically driven system functions and requirements. Thirdly, the use of a synthesised operational environment, i.e. a war gaming event based Monte Carlo operational analysis simulation model including tactical and behavioural rules in establishing design objects system effectiveness under diverse conditions. Fourthly, the utilisation of the combined set of tools in the coherent method provides the designer with the possibility to generate, explore and analyse and evaluate a large number of competing feasible Play-Cards and concepts in search of the best satisfying designs. The work has resulted in a parametric and concept exploration model for submarine design including a model for cost calculation. A simulation model with an event based and Monte Carlo operational analysis is supporting the systems analysis for evaluation of a complete submarine system. The coherent method with its models and methods provides an integrated computation and analysis environment for efficient work in the early phases and to develop the design objects from needs to a complete concept for further development during the preliminary design phase. The coherent method makes it possible to search for best satisfying designs in the identified design room within the design space by working with models in the functional domain, based on identified needs and deduced and designed requirements aggregated in a representation of a submarine, the Play-Card with its system functions and functional volumes. In a broader aspect, the same methodology can be adapted to handle integrated complex systems in general e.g. ships and airplanes. The methods used in the coherent method have been verified in several steps. First by the FMV/FOI development team based on control calculations of the methods based on accepted theories, the model tests and acceptance and full scale test reports. The methods have also been examined and validated by design teams at industry and research institutions. In all cases, this has led to successful results with a high compliance to verifiable values and the coherent model has been proven useful for its purpose in the early phases.