Early-Stage Design for Electric Ship

One of the truisms of ship design is that the decisions of greatest impact are made in the early stages of design when the least information and the greatest uncertainty are present. In response to this, ongoing efforts in developing ship design tools are directed toward making more information available sooner and pushing decision points later. The integrated nature of electric ship in which performance of support systems directly affects performance of primary mission systems compounds this concern; design and simulation of support systems are needed earlier, and collaborative design among multiple engineering disciplines is required in the process. This paper reviews the Navy ship design process and recent developments in ship design tools to illuminate the areas in which further development is necessary.