DYNAMIC ANALYSIS - SAIL THE SHIP BEFORE ITS BUILT

A combatant ship is a complex system that involves the integration of many subsystems and components. Everyone agrees that systems integrati on is essential; nevertheless, the ability to deal with it is viewed a s being elementary at one end of the spectrum to overly complex at the other end. Past emphasis has been on the development of the necessary tools and organizations needed to produce components that can be used to configure systems. As a consequence, when dealing with systems int egration, the focus is primarily on what the system is and how its com ponents fit, rather than what if does. Computer technology is benefiti ng the marine industry in many ways. Although it has been used to prog ressively improve the capability to deal with the component issues rel ated to systems integration, the marine industry has yet to recognize the merits of effectively using the technology to address system funct ionality issues. This paper elaborates on the difficulty in dealing wi th system functionality and describes a way in which computer based si mulation of propulsion machinery systems can be used to deal with the functionality aspects of systems integration. When procuring a ship, p ropulsion system simulation permits us to ''sail it before we build it .''