Abstract

The H2020 European Research project – HOLISHIP – Holistic Optimisation of Ship Design and Operation for Life Cycle (2016-2020) sets out to substantially advance ship design to achieve much improved vessel concepts for the 21st century. This innovative design approach, which is implemented into an integrated design software platform, considers all relevant ship design aspects, namely energy efficiency, safety, environmental compatibility, production and life-cycle cost. In the present paper we demonstrate parts of the HOLISHIP approach by the optimisation of a RoPAX ship using concurrent hydrodynamic and machinery simulation software tools to improve the design and operational behaviour of the vessel. This exercise is conducted by different partners in different sites on a common data set for the study vessel. The conducted multi-objective optimisation for improved efficiency and safety uses parametric models for ship’s hull form and internal arrangements, and demonstrates the functionality of the adopted approach in a complex design problem.