December
2007
Table
of Contents:
Southwest Section |
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New England Section |
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Greek Section |
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Texas Section |
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December
2007
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Southwest Section September 18, 2007 On the evening of September 18th, 2007 the Southwest Section of SNAME conducted their regular monthly meeting at Fiddler’s Green Restaurant. Robert A. Sielski, Naval Architect, presented on the current practice in the fabrication of aluminum structure for ships and craft, comparing practices with aluminum to those for fabricating in steel. Basic aluminum properties and marine alloys were reviewed with the implications for fabrication given. The effect of long and short-term exposure to higher temperatures was explained with the implications for current and possible new fabrication practices suggested. Methods of cutting and welding were presented as well as typical construction practices. Distortion and dimensional tolerances were reviewed, and methods of fabrication with special integrally-stiffened extruded panels reviewed.
Reviving Surprise: Reconfiguration of “HMS” Rose into “HMS” Surprise for Her Role in “Master & Commander”, and Restoring Her Certification On the evening of October 16th, 2007 the Southwest Section of SNAME took the lead for a joint SNAME & ASNE meeting. David L. Kolthoff, P.E., Naval Architect, SUPSHIP SD, presented “Reviving Surprise: Reconfiguration of “HMS” Rose into “HMS” Surprise for Her Role in “Master & Commander”, and Restoring Her Certification. The replica sailing ship “HMS” Rose was purchased by film studio 20th Century Fox, and featured in the 2003 film “Master and Commander: Far Side of the World”. Renamed “HMS” Surprise, the vessel was modified for her film role, but in the process lost her US Coast Guard certification as a School Ship. In 2005, the vessel was purchased by the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Under the direction of Captain Chris Welton, Museum staff and volunteers have worked to bring Surprise back to operating condition, and worked with the USCG Marine Safety Office to restore her School Ship certification. This presentation provides an overview of changes to Rose over the years, the changes made for her film role as Surprise, and work to restore her certification.
September 2007 Members and guests of the SNAME New England Section and of ASNE NNE Section took a dinner cruise on Casco Bay Line’s newest vessel, the 110’ 399-passenger ferry, the Aucocisco III. The ferry was designed by Seaworthy Systems, Inc. of Essex, CT, and built at Steiner Shipyard in Bayou La Batre, AL. Naval architects Bill Wood, Jennifer Kollmer, Eric Stolzenberg, and John Hunter, designers of the Aucocisco III, were on board to answer questions on its design, styling and accessibility. Posters of construction drawings and photographs were displayed to illustrate the considerations and decisions made regarding the design. Captain Bill Wanzer, who represented Casco Bay Lines during the design process, discussed the design tradeoffs from the owner’s point of view, opened the engine room for tours and operated the vessel during the cruise, which took place on a delightful starlit night on Casco Bay. SNAME
member Don MacPherson brought his entire class of ocean engineering students
from the Univ. of New Hampshire to the cruise. The cruise was a great
networking opportunity, and resulted in at least two new SNAME members
and one new ASNE member. October 19, 2007 The October meeting of the New England Section was held in the Alfond Student Center at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine. Castine is "down east" on the coast of Maine, 135 miles northeast of Portland, and a long drive for most of our members. It is a credit to the dedication of our section members that this meeting was a great success. Dr.
Richard W. Kimball, Asst. Prof of Engineering at Maine Maritime Academy,
presented information on a new tidal power research initiative at Maine
Maritime Academy. The goal of this initiative is to develop a test facility
called the Tidal Energy Device Evaluation Center (TEDEC) on a site near
MMA's campus. This site has been designated a high tidal velocity area
and is ideal for testing new tidal power technologies.
Maine Maritime Academy has a very strong student section, as illustrated by the 31students that attended the meeting. We want to thank all who helped make this event a success, and to give special thanks to the MMA Student Chair, Rick Smith, and to the MMA Student Vice-chair, Scott Ring.
October 11, 2007 “Applications
of Operational Oceanography in Shipping and Marine Transportation” On October 11 of 2007, the SNAME Greek Section had its first technical meeting for the new season. In the presence of about 30 persons, many of them students, Dr. Takvor Soukissian, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oceanography, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research presented the topic entitled above. He spoke about the wide variety of Operational Oceanography applications, in relation to issues concerning shipping and marine transportation. As he stated the justification for Operational Oceanography is the user requirements. Operational Oceanography is one of the fastest growing research and technological fields of the ocean sciences during the last decade. The products of Operational Oceanography are i) nowcasts providing the most usefully accurate description of the present state of the sea and the atmosphere; ii) forecasts providing continuous forecasts of the future condition of the sea and the atmosphere for as far ahead as possible and iii) hindcasts assembling long term data sets which will provide data for description of past states, and time series showing trends and changes. Operational Oceanography proceeds by the rapid transmission of observational data to data assimilation centres, where numerical models produce forecasts for the wind and wave state. The outputs from the models are used to generate data products, especially useful in shipping and marine transportation, as e.g., warnings (of coastal floods, ice and storm damage, extreme wave events, etc.), electronic charts, optimization of ship routing, the rationalization of the decision about sailing suspension, the risk assessment of a ship taking into account the prevailing and forecasted wave conditions in her route, the optimization of search and rescue missions, information about the prevailing and forecasted wave conditions in the arrival harbor, etc. The final products and forecasts are then transferred (in near real time) to industrial users, government agencies, regulatory authorities and on-board sailing ships. In Greece, the advancement of Operational Oceanography was made possible with the development of the POSEIDON marine monitoring and forecasting system. Methods and tools have been established, aiming at the optimization and at increasing the efficiency of marine transportations and sea operations in both short-term (operational) and long-term basis. The prediction of the expected wave heights in the Greek seas takes into account the small open fetches and the presence of many islands that reflect the waves. A lively discussion and later a reception followed this very interesting presentation.
November
8, 2007 Mr. Luiz Motta, Engineering Manager of American Bureau of Shipping Greece, provided a highly useful presentation entitled “Attention to Structural Details - Critical to Vessel Safety and Operational Efficiency” to 60 people who attended the Greek Section’s second technical meeting on Thursday, November 8th, 2007. The author pointed out that the drive for new construction efficiency should be accompanied by a greater emphasis on structural integrity of critical details. Some symptoms of such efficiency drive are wider web frame spacing, wider longitudinal spacing, reduction in structural pieces, novel structural layouts and higher tensile strength steels, etc. The fatigue requirements for Common Structural Rules (CSR) for tankers and bulk carriers are a necessary step forward by IACS to counter the potential adverse effects on fatigue performance of critical details. Mr. Motta presented a three-tier approach which has been developed for the fatigue assessment: Tier I: Review of structural details based on past experience and fatigue assessment results by plan review engineers. Tier II: Rule based fatigue strength assessment and Tier III : Spectral fatigue analysis for detailed verification . He then demonstrated applications of the above approach to critical details. Mr. Motta argued that the objectives of the owner, of the yard and of class, are not always aligned. He also outlined the structural design challenges facing the shipyard, which point out the fact that failure does not always occur at locations one expects. Details of the Dynamic Loading Approach (DLA) and Spectral Fatigue Analysis (SFA) were also presented. A
lively question-and-answer period with the audience followed Mr. Motta’s
talk, with a discussion on the details of the new CSR rules and some concerns
that these rules may result in ships of lower standards than the previous
rules. A buffet reception concluded this highly successful event.
Texas Section June 12, 2007 The June meeting of the Texas Section was held at the Westchase Marriott on June 12th. Close to 50 attendees showed up for a presentation on “The Need to Factor Asset Risk into LNG Terminal Agreement Negotiations” by Pedram Fanailoo from DNV Energy in Houston. Mr. Fanailoo first gave an overview of the various potential delays to the LNG supply chain and discussed the impacts that such delays could have, and potential ways to mitigate such impacts. Many LNG terminals in the future will be multi-user, meaning that several companies will have access rights to the terminal. Mr. Fanailoo suggested that these users should ensure that they understand how the terminal will operate before they negotiate access rights. Many factors can affect a terminal’s operability including weather, equipment reliability, berthing limits, storage and inventory. Mr. Fanailoo recommended a risk-based approach to understanding a terminal’s performance in order to negotiate a more suitable Terminal Use Agreement. DNV has developed Monte Carlo based simulation software that is being used by many major oil companies, as well as others, to simulate the whole supply chain in order to see the impact of events on the whole system.
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