Research On Intelligent Layout Design For Ship Engine Room

Ship general layout design is one of the most important parts of shipdesign, and the layout for engine room is an important issue of the generallayout design. During the design process, geometric constraints andfunctional constraints should both be considered. The traditional layoutmethod needs comprehensive consideration and stepwise refinement, thusthe process of layout for the ship engine room costs a lot of time and lacksautomation.The layout for ship engine room is the object of this research, whichutilizes the key technology of KBE (Knowledge-based Engineering),database technology, computer graphics and optimization technology,completes the knowledge acquisition, representation and reasoning,establishes the math model of layout for ship engine room, and at lastbuilds the solution methodology. This research breaks through thelimitation of traditional ship CAD system, develops the layout into3D-visualization, automation and Intelligentization, and improves theefficiency and quality of design. At the end of this research, themethodology is testified with a layout design of a platform in the3100TEUcontainer ship engine room. The result of the optimization illustrates thatKBE could effectively help to solve3D layout problem.Specific work is as follows:1. Knowledge acquisition of the layout problem for3100TEUcontainer ship engine room, mainly from the aspects of: the position andsize of engine room, layout criteria, equipment category, operation andmaintenance, and engine room channels. 2. Knowledge representation, including productive rule method andobject-oriented method.3. Knowledge reasoning, through calling the math model of layout forship engine room and optimizing with genetic algorithm.4.3D modeling of3100TEU container ship engine room and theequipments with CATIA.5. The method of CATIA secondary development with VB.net isillustrated, a case of a platform in3100TEU container ship engine room isanalyzed.To draw a conclusion, layout for ship engine room is the object of thisresearch, the comprehensive application of KBE method and optimizationalgorithm is the body. This research valuable for developing the intelligentship general layout design system.