My Own Passenger Liner Design

Hello all,

Alex here again after a while (been busy with college and stuff).

Anyways, I want to present a passenger liner/cruise ship design (named MS Canada, after my birth country) I have been working on for a while now, and show the specifications for her. I just want to get some feedback from y'all if it's alright.

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1. Principal Specifications (MS Canada):
Overall Length: 900 ft
Waterline Length: 854 ft
Beam: 97.5 ft (maximum)
Design Draft: 26.64 ft
Hull Depth at side: 68.25 ft
Speed: 29 kts (service); 32 kts (maximum)
Design Displacement: 34,300 long tons (@ design waterline)
Shaft Horsepower (estimate): 130,000 SHP
Propulsion Machinery: undecided, but calculations assume steam turbine propulsion (with 6 boilers and 4 turbine sets)
Passengers: 1,500 (double); 2,000 (max)
Crew: 750 (estimate)

2. Hull Coefficients and Descriptives:
Block: 0.541
Midship: 0.966
Waterplane: 0.66
Prismatic: 0.56
TPI (tons per inch immersion): 130.84 tons/inch

3. Watertight Subdivision:
Watertight Bulkheads: 16
Watertight Deck: Yes
"Design" Survivability Standard: at least 3 compartment-standard

4. Hull Centers*: transverse direction only
BM = 28.36 ft
KB = 14.91 ft
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KM = 43.27 ft
KG = 36.17 ft (normal)
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G.M. = 7.1 ft (normal)

*Estimated values using formulas in Samuel Halpern's article "A Matter of Stability and Trim" on Titanicology website.

5. Cruising Range and Fuel Stowage Requirements:
Sea speed: 30.5 knots
Shaft-horsepower: ~85,300 SHP (estimate)
Steaming radius: 7,000 nautical miles

Fuel Type: Biodiesel
Fuel Density: 7.34 lbs/gallon
Specific Fuel Consumption Rate (lb/shp-hr): ~0.453
Normal Fuel Load: 3,960 long tons
Maximum Fuel Load: 4,554 long tons (+15% normal fuel load)

6. Weights Table Estimate for Normal Displacement:
Normal Displacement: 34,300 long tons (lt)
Hull = 14,300 lt
Superstructure/Interior Outfitting = 6,080 lt
Machinery = 3,110 lt
Tank Capacities:
Potable water = 1,464 lt
Black water = 284 lt
Gray water = 1,132 lt
Swimming pools = 200 lt
Provisions/Stores = 450 lt
Fuel (normal load) = 3,960 lt
Passengers, Crew, and Baggage = 370 lt
Misc. Weight (communications equip., ballast, lifeboats, etc.) = 2,250 lt
Margin (2%) = 700 lt

7. Maximum Displacement Additional Loads and Max Draft Estimation:
Additional Weights:
Fuel = 594 lt
Provisions/Stores = 100 lt
Add. Passengers (+500 berths) = 72 lt
Add. Freshwater = 325 lt
Add. Black water = 58 lt
Add. Gray water = 251 lt
Add. Boiler Feed Water = 100 lt [400 lt total capacity]

Max Draft Estimation:
Total Additional Weights = 1,500 lt
Maximum Displacement = 35,800 lt
Maximum Draft = ~27.59 ft
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I'm still learning a lot about naval architecture, but its something I've been interested in for a long and time and I'm about a year away from starting my studies in Canada to hopefully be able to design this ship for real someday. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Cheers

 

Firstly well done for trying!

Secondly....where is the GA?...until you have a GA, all you have is a set of numbers, which frankly could be from anything. Thus until you have a GA, which the numbers are based upon...i would say keep going and come back for further comments when you have a GA.

 

um , impressed
However only warships run steam turbines , in which case your fuel is wrong
And the limited life of the steam turbine killed the great liners,
the fuel you specify would mean 4 medium speed diesels? such as QE2 or is it QM2 runs?
good luck, wish I had had math to follow your track, as a kid

 

Thanks for the early responses guys

As to the GA...I haven't been able to come up with a new one as of yet for this updated design (she has gone through quite a few iterations since I started working on her basic design). However, I can give some details as to the layout inside the hull. The deck height in the hull is intended to be 9 ft, and a similar deck height above the main strength deck in the superstructure. The watertight deck would be situated approximately 14.6 ft above the design waterline of the ship. That would leave 3 passenger decks above the watertight deck in the hull, and one service deck below it (not including the machinery spaces).

However, attached is a side profile of the concept ship as well as a SketchUp midsection view with the ship's centers of mass and buoyancy (to 1:1 scale in SketchUp). I will try to draw a newer version of the ship's General Arrangement as soon as I can.

Thank you for the interest in my ship

 

Steam engineers are a rare breed these days, all navy guys
Study the video of those QUEENS fascinating
http://www.chriscunard.com/qe2_deckplans.php

 

And how did you arrive at the location and value of the VCG/LCG and the displacement??

 

Adhoc,

For the displacement calculation I took the calculated block coefficient (0.541 in my case) and multiplied it by the ship's waterline length, beam, and design draft. That comes out to 34,300 long tons. I haven't yet been able to calculate the longitudinal centers yet. I'm still looking into how to do those specific calculations. Hydrostatics will be the area I will need to pay attention the most, because it seems really complicated to me (at least right now). Although I have been able to to understand the topics of transverse centers of mass, buoyancy, metacentric height, GZ curves, TPI (tons per inch immersion), intact and damage stability pretty well so far concept-wise. I arrived at the VCG estimation by looking through several "old" naval architecture and marine engineering books on Google books which included some examples of old ocean liners and I used some general rule of thumbs from there as a guide on how to estimate the values for my ship. For most of the transverse centers, I used the formulas on Samuel Halpern's Titanicology article titled "A Matter of Stability and Trim" (http://titanic-model.com/articles/A_Matter_of_Stability_Trim/A Matter of Stability & Trim.pdf) and calculated the values for my ship from those. One thing I would love to learn on my own is Simpson's Rule for calculating the waterplane area by hand (unless its exclusively done by computers and not by hand).

It's not supposed to be 100% perfect at this point, as I'm still learning, but a lot of terminology I do understand. I'm surprised on how much I've been able to learn on my own, and I'm excited to start doing naval architecture with actual design programs in about a year at my naval architecture college in Newfoundland, Canada.

 

Ahh...i see.

All you have done is a hydrostatic calculation of a 3D shape that is floating on a given draft. That is all. This has nothing to do with what the design, your GA, will actually weigh or displace when fully loaded. You can only establish this by doing a weight estimate. No matter how detailed or guessed, you cannot design a boat without a weight estimate.

Once you have established a weight estimate at the same time, you also work out the centres for each item. It is basic maths, just a weight times its lever divided by the sum. As shown here as an example.

Nope this is the last and easy part. The most difficult part is your design, the GA and the weight estimate based upon your GA. If you don't do that, then what have you got other than a series of numbers?

 

A Little Bit of Revision...

Hey guys,

So in about a month and a half I will be starting my 3-year naval architecture program in Newfoundland, Canada and in my free time continued working on my passenger liner CANADA, and made some revisions to her prospective design. I will also list some questions for some potential feedback.

Current Ship Particulars:
LOA: 900 ft
LWL: 854 ft
Beam: 95 ft
Draft (design): 29.08 ft
Depth: 69.5 ft (keel to main weather deck)

Service Speed: 29 kts
Maximum Speed: 33 kts

Block Coeff.: 0.540
Displacement (design): ~36,400 long tons
Maximum Shaft Horsepower: ~144,000 SHP

Proposed Power-plant: (see attached text file for my estimates)

Passengers (lower beds/maximum): 1,500/2,000
Crew: ~750 (estimate, taken as half the lower bed pax. capacity)
Total Capacity: ~2,750

Safety Equipment: 14 x 150-person lifeboats; 2 x 6-person rescue boats; 22 x 35-person liferafts (for the crew) + 20 additional liferafts (same capacity); total capacity: 3,570 people (or 129.8% of the ship's total capacity)

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Questions:
1) Since the time-frame for her design is around 2030 or so, I've been toying around with the idea of making her the first viable nuclear-powered ship on the market. Technologically-speaking, that part of the project would be relatively easy, but "selling" the ship idea to a potential operator would be difficult. What are your thoughts on this?

2) I estimated her gross tonnage to be in the region of 47-48,000 GT, which would mean a relatively "cramped" ship as far as passenger space goes, and the ship will be devoid of balcony cabins (since I'm more of a traditionalist, but also feel that there needs more medium-sized passenger ships in the cruise market). Am I digging myself into a hole by not adhering to current design trends in passenger ship design?
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Any other comments aside from these questions would be greatly appreciated, as I thoroughly enjoy reading and learning the discipline as I go

 

ss Canada?- Looks like the SS United States of about 60 years ago... and but for some blue, right down to the colors.

 

some deck plans

 

How did you get the weights if there is no structural design?

 

How can you get the weights? Well, a comparison using the Hull Cubic Number (LxBxD) is a place to start.
I used the the Cubic Number of the 'United States' and translated the displacement (45,400 tons)to the 'Canada' (OceanLinerFan listed at 36,400 tons) and got 35,796 tons. This is a difference of less than 2% [ (36,400-35,796)/35,796 x 100 ]. Reasonably close at this this stage of the design.

 

The "Cubic Hull Number" can be a fairly accurate method for predicting the weight of a similar ship, built 100 years ago. Nowadays construction methods and materials used in the accommodation are so different that, in all probability, this method will result in a higher weight that the real. On the other hand, the machinery, services, fire protection, safety etc, for a current boat are much more complicated and suggest that, perhaps, for a ship built in 2030, is not a suitable method.
The weight of a passenger ship is an extremely important item that must be calculated very seriously. It can not be based on statistics on so old ships, although the external shapes are similar.

 

Hey guys,

As to the "weight" issue, the way I've been estimating the displacement of the ship is based on the intended service speed of the ship (in this case 29 kts) and calculating a suitable block coefficient for the hull and calculating the resultant displacement from that. Then the goal would be to have everything on the ship add up to that calculated displacement without going over.

The main reason I haven't been able to develop a GA for the ship is because I don't have the money for the required software at the moment. However, in my second year of studies, I will have access to them and am planning to design this vessel properly during my "Capstone" course in my third year.

As to the similarity to the SS United States, she was indeed inspired by that vessel but is not a direct copy, just my own interpretation of what a "modern" 1950s-styled liner like the United States could be, coupled with all the passenger ship design refinements surely to come within the 2020-2030 timeframe.