The European Commission has granted 6.2 Million Euros ($6.9mln) for a new research project called SHIPLYS (Ship Lifecycle Software Solutions).
The project gathers a team of 12 leading maritime companies and research facilities from several European countries in order to develop simulation and modelling tools that will minimise the time and costs involved in ship design and production.
The main objective of SHIPLYS is to improve the competitiveness of the European shipyards by supporting SME naval architects, shipbuilders and ship-owners to survive in the world market by:
Calculation and modelling tools currently used to overcome these needs are difficult to use and time consuming, especially for SMEs. To address these challenges, SHIPLYS project partners will produce new techniques for quick, reliable multi-disciplinary modelling capability for the marine industry.
The development work in the project applies to two main areas: virtual prototyping and simulation modelling, and the SHIPLYS life cycle suite of tools (called SHIPLYS LCTs) that include LCCA, environmental assessments, risk assessments and multi-criteria decision support modules.
The idea is to develop and integrate rapid virtual prototyping tools with life cycle tools that will be compatible with existing early design software, such as FORAN, Ship Constructor and others. These rapid prototyping tools will be able to establish a model in short timeframe which will bring benefit of investigating multiple alternatives easily and efficiently.
The SHIPLYS consortium is led by TWI Ltd and comprises 12 partners in total, representing different sectors:
The project started in September 2016 with a duration of 3 years.