Prediction and verification of the maneuverability of naval surface ships

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Specialist Team for Seaway Mobility (ST/SM) has progressed significantly in the development of new mission-oriented maneuvering criteria in the format of a NATO Standardization Agreement (STANAG). This work was finalized in July 2010, and the STANAG has now been submitted for ratification to all NATO member countries. Navies can now include maneuverability requirements in their vessel specifications more comprehensively and accurately. Obviously, this will have implications for prospective ship designers and builders, who will be obliged to meet these requirements. The objective of this paper is to create awareness that these criteria are approaching soon. Tools and methods are to be prepared and validated to assist in the design of the vessel in accordance with the criteria. The paper explains the prediction and verification procedures of vessel compliance. First, the philosophy and approach of the criteria is explained and discussed. Discussing all criteria is a task too detailed for this paper, as there are up to 240 criteria, depending on missions and capabilities. A selected subset of criteria is discussed in this paper. An example of the verification process is carried out for one ship: the naval combatant benchmark vessel 5415M. The reader will be guided through the steps of: selection of criteria, selection of tools, and the verification itself. The contents of the steps will be different in each loop of the design spiral. This paper shows methods to predict and verify compliance with each requirement in both the conceptual and detailed design stage. In the conceptual design stage the verification is done by performing numerical simulations. In the detailed design stage, these simulations are augmented by a smart selection of scaled model tests.