Functional and Physical Decomposition for Ship Design

Abstract : Engineering the total ship as an integrated system using systems engineering, not merely the physical aggregate of systems designed by disparate organizations, has been recognized as the key to designing and producing these complex entities in an effective and affordable manner. The engineering of the total ship has proven to be difficult to integrate, however, especially since the two main disciplines, naval architecture and combat systems, operate in distinct domains. In addition, the engineering task is becoming ever more of a challenge, now that the ship as a system' is being re-defined as ship as part of the battle group system-of-systems'. The expanded system context forces engineers to deal with complexity as an integral characteristic of the process. This paper presents the impacts associated with engineering the total ship from these two important aspects, the differing design domain perspectives and the redefining of the engineering task as relating to a system-of-systems, and outlines a possible framework to allow a more generalized and rigorous design approach.