Design and construction of a ship is not an easy
task. It requires tremendous persistence and hard work. The personnel dealing
with ship construction job are known as naval architects. Lets find out what this
naval architects do and what is it that make their task so demanding.
Introduction
A ship is such a massive structure that it often
compels us to think as to what does it takes to build such a gigantic thing.
What does it take to make a ship? And more than that, who makes them? Designing
a ship is not only a challenging task but also an interesting one. It requires
the application of engineering principles to the ocean environment.
A visit to a ship building yard or a shipping
company would answer most of your questions, but that wont help you to figure
out as to what are the processes that goes behind the making. In this article,
we will go through the various activities performed by the ship building
personnel and briefly try to understand as to what they do.
The person who has studied the art of ship
breaking is known as a naval architect. The main job of a naval architect is
the process of planning and drawing of any kind of floating structure. Thus the
job involves basic design of the ship, including estimating ship stability and
hull form. A sailor or a ship personnel has to work on a ship throughout but a
naval architect's job expects him to work both on ship and land. The main
activities that a naval architect is involved with during the lifecycle of the
ship construction process can be enumerated as:
- Sketching preliminary design
- Detailed drawing layout.
- Planning and construction
- Launching and dry-docking
- Evaluating
- Testing
The Making of a Naval Architect
A naval architect goes through a rigorous
training for a couple of years, which also includes an intership. He is trained
to be proficient in structures, construction,concept design and subjects such
as hydrodynamics and hydrostatics. Nowadays the designing and structuring of a
floating vessel is generally done on computers with the help of specialised
softwares. Each and every qualified naval architect is expected to be well
versed in the operating of such softwares. These softwares uses analytical data
to generate blue prints of sea going vessels, considering various parameters
such as sea stability, resistance, hull development, powering, steering etc.
After a few years of experience a naval architect
is expected to take up the management of the entire yard or a specific project
which includes duties such as planning, production and compex operation of
fitting out. Also in the present competitive word, its the the need of the
situation that a naval architect continuously upgrade himself with technology
and managerial skills. This is necessary because every company is looking out
ways to make savings with the existing techniques and equipments by adopting
new processes and practices.
Thus to become a naval architect, the following
steps are required.
- A graduation in naval architecture/ ocean or marine engineering
- An apprenticeship in a shipping company
Higher degree pertaining to the requisite skills.
Employment Prospects & Job Profile
A naval architect can be absorbed by a shipyard,
shipping company, naval dockyards, ship design bureaus, navies , naval
architecture consultancy firm, offshore structures installation company and
oceanographic institutions. At an entry level a naval architect will perform a
job of production manager to oversee the making of new ships. If he is asked to
design the ships, he has to make detailed drawings of the ships after the
concept drawing has been made.
A good naval architect has to be compatible with
complex structural calculation. He also has to conversant with sophisticated
structural softwares such as Ansys, NISA and Pro engineer. For detailed
drawings for the production, he will be using Ship design Packages like TRIBON
or General Engineering Packages like CATIA
The process of construction is a demanding job
which will involve high stress levels due to the conflicts arising out of the
overlapping of different ship systems.
He should be well acquainted with the aspects
such as materials used for marine applications, wood technology, welding
technology and corrosion science.
In case you want to get a deep insight of the job you
can check out the following site related to naval architecture.
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