TUG DESIGN Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding has delivered several ATBs, including this one for Kirby
Reaping the Rewards of
3D Design
Using FORAN in Class/Basic Design stage pays off on ATB project
U Photo : Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding
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Based on a paper by Jeffrey Matson, FBS, and Veronica Alonso and Antonio Valerrama, SENER
sing a 3D approach for the Initial Design, Detail Design, and Production Design phases of a new vessel construction project is nothing new. However, ship designers have been reluctant to use that same 3D approach during the Class/Basic Design stage. Most of that work in the past was performed in 2D. However, the design and construction of a new Articulated Tug Barge (ATB) unit being built by Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding in Sturgeon Bay, WI, may well change the way ship designers and shipbuilders handle Class/Basic design in the future. In a paper presented at the SNAME Annual Convention held in Houston last month, authors Jeffrey Matson, Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, Veronica Alonso, and Antonio Valerrama, both of engineering firm and software developer SENER outlined their findings in a case study. The paper, “Innovative 3D Approach for the Basic/Class Design in a Remote Engineering Environment,” describes how a ship design project was developed in 3D during the basic/class design, detail and production,
generating the required class drawings as mere outputs from the 3D model generated by CAD/CAM/CAE system FORAN. FORAN was used to develop an ATB unit that was designed by naval architecture firm Guarino & Cox, LLC, Covington, LA. Being built for Wawa/AMA Capital Partners, the ATB unit consists of a powerful oceangoing tug that is mated to a tank barge via an Intercon coupling system. The 130 ft x 42 ft x 20 ft oceangoing tug has two 4,000 hp GE V250MDC diesel engines that drive two 134 inch Nautican ducted propellers. The double-hull tank barge, with a length of 578 ft, beam of 78 ft, and depth of 42 ft, has a capacity of 185,000 barrels. A major benefit of FORAN is that it allows users to collaboratively work in the 3D design model simultaneously, including from offsite locations, while maintaining configuration control over the process. For the project, servers with the FORAN database were located at Bay Shipbuilding in Sturgeon Bay. Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding (FBS) employees were able to access FORAN from their workstations to modify and manipulate the database.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 miles away in Covington, LA, Guarino & Cox designers used a Citrix connection to access the FORAN database stored in Wisconsin from their workstations. In the past, Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding relied on 3D models generated by subcontractors. While this provided FBS with a completed model, it did not allow the shipyard the opportunity to review or modify it. This potentially lead to issues where shipyard standards weren’t properly employed or lessons learned were not incorporated in the 3D model for the benefit of subsequent sister vessels.
Creating Two Separate Models in FORAN For the Wawa/AMA Capital Partners ATB, the tug and the barge were created as two separate projects within FORAN and utilized the software in distinct ways. The tank barge was based on an existing design, with much of its regulatory/preliminary design available in 2D drawings. As such, the barge took the “traditional” modeling path in FORAN where 2D drawings were November 2017 // Marine Log 23