FE Model Based Parametric Study Support System

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.