Common Hull Auxiliary Multi-mission Platform Design Process
By C. Henry Dorger, Matthew Houlahan, Madeleine Leland
The Common Hull Auxiliary Multi-mission Platform (CHAMP) is a ship concept capable of utilizing one platform to support one of five different auxiliary missions. The key design challenge was finding a common platform for several missions with diverging design drivers that lack commonality. A set-based design-like approach was taken in order to develop this common platform. Mission specific three dimensional area-reservation CAD models were developed and compared to find commonalities while elements of modularity and flexibility were leveraged to maximize available mission space. Each CHAMP mission was deconstructed into area and volume elements represented as “Building Blocks”, which formed a library to be recalled to represent a level of mission capability. The “Building Blocks” were combined to create “Block Models” – area reservation arrangements using “Building Blocks”. An “Architectural Framework” – an empty ship and deckhouse shell utilizing common ship interfaces – was created to guide the placement of the “Building Blocks” within the “Block Models” ensuring commonality between multiple designers. A hull form and machinery spaces were defined late in order to freely explore the impacts of applying modularity and flexibility to a concept and prevent any premature design constraints. An overlap process was applied to create a CHAMP Ship – a “Block Model” that can transition to one of five CHAMP missions. Area constraints (vertical access, watertight transverse bulkheads, TEU footprints) were increasingly applied during the overlap process to ensure design convergence. The converged CHAMP Ship design, the “Block Model” was shifted from Block Space to Ship Space through a Refinement Step. A hull was wrapped around the CHAMP “Block Model” and its multi-mission capability was re-evaluated: mission area lost due to hull form was refined as general arrangements were developed. In parallel, software such as the Advanced Ship & Submarine Evaluation Tool was utilized to perform traditional naval architecture analysis.