Page 19: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Q1 2013)

Brian Forstell is Vice President and General Manager, Government Services, for CDI Corporation?s Global Engineering and Technology Solutions business. Forstell has earned a reputation as one of the industry?s leading innovators in the research, design and development of advanced marine vessels. Brian has a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace and Ocean Engineering from Virginia Tech University. ?Rhinoceros,? and, along with an estimate of the radii of gy- ration in pitch, roll and yaw based on the mass distribution, all geometries and mass properties are ready to feed to other programs such as those for predicting seakeeping. Unique Model: User Friendly Interface, tooThe model is unique inasmuch as it uses, to whatever extent practical, algorithms derived from  rst-principle physics rath- er than from empirical data to characterize all major subsys-tems and their relationship to the overall ship. This approach was taken in order to ensure that new technologies were realis- tically modeled without being unduly biased by existing (and possibly outdated) trends in ship or ship-subsystem design.The software features a user-friendly Excel interface and is capable of being used effectively by designers to assess the whole-ship impact of changes in technology and operational requirements. The code uses an object-oriented architecture and executes very quickly, even on a standard PC. The time taken to produce a single, balanced design is typically just a few seconds. Large parametric runs, where numerous combinations of parametric variations can be analyzed, can thus be executed in minutes. Effectively, the tool frees the designer from the te- dious, iterative calculations of the naval architecture design spi- ral. This enables users to spend their effort assessing the results, observing trends, and determining the desired con guration. The information contained in the parametric results is at least as important as the details of an optimized solution, and the intent is to provide the user with the information needed to make the appropriate choices so they can maximize their Cost/Risk/Bene t assessment. www.maritimeprofessional.com | Maritime Professional | 19MP #1 18-33.indd 19MP #1 18-33.indd 192/22/2013 10:55:16 AM2/22/2013 10:55:16 AM