Fast and reliable hull weight estimation

Weight is the most critical characteristic of any newly built ship, as we mentioned previously. Fast and reliable hull weight estimation at the beginning of a shipbuilding project is a time-consuming task. However, Naval Architect can simplify this process like never before. Today, we would like to emphasize how much time it truly takes to obtain the ship’s weight and centre of gravity (COG) using only the basic general arrangement (GA) plan.

The ingredients for fast and reliable hull weight estimation

We are at the very early stages of the project, with the hull structure design still far from being finalised. In our previous article, we mentioned the current methods of weight estimation. We also provided details on how to use Naval Architect effectively for that purpose. At this point, we start from a basic GA drawing and a draft of the ship’s specifications.

How much time does it take?

Creating a model for weight estimation in Naval Architect based on the existing GA typically takes around 2 days. Of course, this timeframe depends on the complexity and size of the vessel. Nevertheless, we have found 16 working hours to be a suitable benchmark. Below, we present an example model of a Corvette ship, which provides all the necessary input data for the analysis, including the areas of all hull plates and their respective centres of gravity.

Weight is calculated using structure weight factors assigned to each hull plate, as we explain in detail in our article. The more precise results you desire, the more detailed the breakdown of hull members needs to be. To achieve a +/- 5% margin, it takes approximately 2 to 3 hours to assign the factors and create the actual analysis in Naval Architect. Whenever the model changes, all the numbers automatically update accordingly. This saves a significant amount of time that would otherwise be spent manually inputting new sets of hull plate areas into spreadsheets.

Therefore, you can obtain a reliable hull weight estimation in less than 20 hours. Remember that we started from a basic GA and ship specification!

utilise your existing tools for weight estimation

But what if you already have your own preferred tool for weight calculation? Is it cumbersome to input the data? Not anymore! With our open API and new data export functionality, you can effortlessly extract data from the Naval Architect model and seamlessly integrate it into the tool of your choice. For more information on the export tool, please refer to our other article.

Join the world of fast and reliable hull weight estimations

Naval Architect is the industry’s first platform to boost project data management based on a digital ship model. If you are interested to learn more, let’s meet for a 30 mins session to discuss how Naval Architect can help to make your processes more efficient and reliable: Request a free demo here. We also offer a 14-day Free Trial of our platform.