The Practical Design of Advanced Marine Vehicles

This text provides an introductory familiarity with the naval architecture of Advanced Marine Vehicles, with particular emphasis on Catamaran, SES and SWATH types. It is intended as a textbook in advanced marine vehicle design, for a 13-week elective in Naval Architecture at the Senior undergraduate level. As such, it is assumed that the students have a working familiarity with the naval architecture of conventional ships, and thus this work emphasizes the differences between conventional-ship design and AMV-design. The text is focused on early-stage design, providing the tools for preliminary ship sizing in order to evaluate whether the AMV is the appropriate ship type for the mission. It also includes discussion of the particular features and benefits of the major AMV types, so that you can decide when one AMV type might be preferable over another. The book begins with an overview of the types of AMVs. This is followed by discussions of each of the ‘nodes’ of the ship design spiral, e.g. Resistance, Propulsion, Structural Design, Arrangement, Maneuvering, etc. Appropriate to being an overview type of course at the undergraduate level, this book does not provide a detailed treatment of any of the hydrodynamic or mechanical dynamic nuances of high speed vessel design. Instead I present design lanes and overall guidance, such that a practitioner can execute a reasonable early-stage design. Tackling of specific detailed problems that may come up within such a design exercise may require recourse to more detailed texts, and appropriate references and citations are provided herein. This text is the result of the author’s 35 years as a practitioner in the design of advanced marine vehicles.