Nowadays, the computational capability and graphical power based on PCs increase very rapidly every year. As a result, the complicated engineering or scientific problems that could have only been handled by supercomputers a couple of decades ago can now be routinely run on PCs. Besides, the PCs can be assembled in parallel to increase its computational capability theoretically without limitation. The Web-based interface and communication tools are also being enhanced very rapidly and the real-time distance learning (E-Learning) and project cooperation on web get increasing attention. Using the-state-of-the-art computational method, a number of complicated and computationally intensive problems are being solved by PCs. The results can be well demonstrated on screen by graphics and animation tools. Those examples include the simulations of fully nonlinear waves, their interactions with floating bodies, global-motion analysis of multi-unit floating production system including complicated mooring lines and risers. Several examples will be presented in this regard. Also, Web and java-applet based educational tools have been developed at Texas A&M University for better understanding of waves and wave-body interactions. The background and examples of such Web-based educational tools published in Kim et al. (2003) are briefly introduced here.

In preliminary ship design, a parametric study is a more realistic way to explore design space and analyze design problem than an optimization technique due to time-consuming computational work or a difficulty in incorporating all constraints into the optimization formulation. In the parametric study, feasible alternatives are examined in various aspects; the best one can be selected. Among the aspects, the strength assessment by FE analysis is an essential process in the ship design. This paper proposes a system to facilitate a parametric study for FE model based on design of experiment (DOE). It works on a FE pre-processor environment and assists a user to define a parametric study by interacting with FE model. It also provides an interface module with a FE solver in order to control the input file and extract predefined FE results from the output file. Based on the proposed system, a better understating and a better design are expected to be achieved.

Development of rudder gap flow blocking device for lift augmentation and cavitation suppression is presented. In order to verify the performance of this device, cavitation visualization and surface pressure measurements were carried out in a cavitation tunnel. Numerical simulations were conducted using a computational fluid dynamics code for more rigorous verification. The new rudder system is equipped with cam devices, which effectively close the gap between the horn/pintle and movable wing parts. The experimental and computational results show that the proposed rudder system is superior to the conventional rudder systems in terms of the lift augmentation and cavitation suppression.

According to the increase of the requirement for the safety and environmental protection at sea, safety is a core design factor of maritime systems. Safety is defined as a perceived quality that determines to what extent the management, engineering and operation of a system is free of danger to life, property and the environment. There are many possible approaches in dealing with the safety of ships. The risk-based approach is one of the most systematic and reasonable way currently in design, operation and regulatory works for ship safety. This paper proposes a concept of total risk management for ship safety, and introduces a prototype system implemented based on this concept as a framework of design and operation of ships.