Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1977

Total Pages: 30

ISBN-13:

The paper discusses a number of facets of Computer-Aided Ship Design and Construction (CASDAC) in which the writer has been involved. A brief history of computers in the Navy is given, some notes on the CASDAC project, the flavor of two recent programs, Navy planning and philosophy in detail design. and construction, some notes on the Computer-Aided Piping Design and Construction (CAPDAC) project, and finally some notes on the increasingly important role of computer science. The U.S. Navy has a long history in the use of computers in shipbuilding. In May 1944 the first computer came into operation at Harvard, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator -- the Harvard Mark I. This was designed and constructed by Professor Howard Aiken -- at that time a Commander in the United States Navy. It was the Bureau of Ships which first sponsored the operation of this calculator and some of the first problems attacked originated from the Bureau. In 1952, the Applied Mathematics Laboratory was established at the now David W. Taylor Naval Ship Research and Development Center (DTNSRDC) to initiate computer service to the Navy. For this installation the Univac's 6th computer was installed in 1953. Early work included shaft vibrations, shell stiffening, propeller design, underwater sound intensities, pipe stress analysis, and nuclear reactor design. Within a year, this computer was operating around the clock. By 1958, clients included personnel from the naval shipyards processing programs associated with their ship construction program. By 1960 naval shipyards possessed their own computers and programs were in operation for tank capacity tables, hull deflection, voltage drop, shock mounts, sound isolation, mast calculations, weights and moments, propulsion shaft bearing reactions, pipe bend calculations and pipe stress analysis.