Marginal Cost Factors for High Performance Ships and their Impact on Subsystem Design.
Abstract
Investigation reveals that major weapon, propulsion, and sensor subsystems, selected for use aboard Naval vessels, are designed many years prior to the development of a ship. The tendency, by Ship Acquisition Managers, to select off-the-shelf equipment is the result of various political pressures and a requirement to minimize the technical risk of the total ship system. Subsystem Designers develop their product without regard for the subsystem's impact on possible future ship designs. The physical characteristics (i.e. weight, required manning, electrical power, and space required) of a subsystem are not controlled and the growth of these parameters is a major factor in the escalating cost of Naval ships. To assist both the Ship and the Subsystem Acquisition Managers/Designers in controlling costs, Marginal Cost Factors are proposed. Previous work has demonstrated the validity of the concept of Marginal Factors to predict the ship-growth costs due to the impact of subsystems on conventional displacement ships. This thesis builds upon this work by using two ship synthesis computer models to generate Marginal Weight Factors for two high performance ship types of recent interest to the U. S. Navy - Hydrofoils and Suface Effect Ships. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1978
- Accession Number
- ADA075530
Entities
People
- Douglas Kearney Turner
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School