The evolution of ship design from a manual toward a computer-aided, digital approach has been drastic after the 1970s, with the explosive development of computer hardware and software systems. In today’s era of smart digitalization in the frame of Industry 4.0, recently introduced digital/software tools and systems increase the efficiency and quality of the life-cycle ship design process, but also the operational complexity and the demand for proper training of users of software platforms. Parametric optimisation and simulation-driven design, product lifecycle management, digital twins and artificial intelligence are nowadays frequently used by the maritime industry during the commissioning/quality control activities and in the various phases of ship design, ship operation and ship production. This paper presents an overview of notable developments in the above areas and the way ahead to respond to present and future challenges of the maritime industry.

The introduction of the ‘Safe Return to Port’ (SRtP) regulations strongly impacted the design of passenger ships. To meet the functional requirements of these regulations, the systems on board reached an extreme level of complexity in terms of redundancy and segregation, considerably increasing the difficulties to assess the compliance of the designs. However, non-compliant designs are a major risk for every design company which must prevent at all costs the possibility of expensive re-designs in later stages of the process. The aim of this research is to address the gap in the literature and in the market of design support tools, presenting a method to effectively mitigate the risks of non-compliant solutions with SRtP. The method comprises a thorough analysis of the spaces on board and a software tool for the assessment of the correct placement of the systems components. The value of the solution proposed was assessed in two case studies in which the method has been proven capable of effectively identifying the non-compliant solutions in a convenient and time-saving manner. Additional features for the suggestion of solutions to achieve the compliance have been implemented in the tool to further support designers during the complex design process of SRtP projects.

Vulnerability reduction is an important topic during the design of naval ships because they are designed to operate in hostile environments and because their on-board distributed systems are becoming increasingly complex. The vulnerability needs to be addressed in the early design stages already, in order to prevent expensive or time-consuming modifications in later, more detailed design stages. However, most existing methods for assessing the vulnerability are better suited for more detailed design stages. Furthermore, existing methods often rely on pre-defined damage scenarios, while damage - or system failure in general - may also occur in ways that were not expected beforehand. This paper proposes a method that addresses these gaps. This is done by incorporating several additions to an existing vulnerability method that has been developed by the authors, using a Markov chain. With this method, there is no longer a need for modelling individual hits or failure scenarios. The additions are illustrated by two test cases. In the first one, a notional Ocean-going Patrol Vessel is considered, and damage is related to physical locations in the ship. The second test case considers a chilled water distribution system in more detail, with failures modelled independent from the physical architecture. The quantitative nature of the results provide an indication of the generic, overall vulnerability of the distributed systems, which is meant to be used in the early design stages for identifying trade-offs and prioritising capabilities.