An increasing number of online sources of wave data and ship GPS position are available. The challenge is to use these to improve the fatigue design of Damen high speed craft.

High speed craft

A tool was coded to easily download environmental data along a ship GPS track. For a group of 46 sisterships GPS data was obtained and wave information downloaded. Using existing fatigue models fatigue life consumption along the ship route and lifetime is predicted.

Wave height along ship routes

Additionally a clustering algorithm is used to reduce the group of ships to a concise number of clusters in which there are ships with similar operational profiles. These operational profiles can be used to improve design guidelines.

Clustering ships in operational profiles

Significant reductions of structural weight have been identified and the tools are currently being used for design of new vessels and lifetime support of existing ships.