Page 87: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 1998)

Top Left: MOB Offloading Simulation.

Top Right: MOB Crane Simulation.

Visualizing Real World

Scenarios

Rigorous dynamics gave us the answers we needed quickly," said

Richard Currie, Technical

Program Manager for the MOB project at prime contractor

McDermott Technology Inc. "We routinely use dynamic analysis to evaluate sea-going structures for stability, integrity and mission performance. ADAMS provides a unique tool to examine critical mission systems in high-stress situations to insure we are ade- quately but not over-designing them." ADAMS numerical output and data plots provided engineers with the detailed information on loads, forces and displacements at specific times and locations to identify and correct potential problems anywhere on the entire structure. Moreover, according to Currie, coupling dynamic sim- ulation and visualization was par- ticularly important to the success of the project. Realistic animation of the models provided greater details often not readily apparent in tabular printouts.

According to Mr. Currie, simu- lation-based design is critical for successfully completing a project of this magnitude on time and within budget. "I can't overem- phasize the importance of the physics-based simulation that dri- ves these visualizations. I always point out to audiences who view these scenes that they are not car- toons but rather realistic repre- sentations of expected behaviors, as accurate as we can make them.

This is critical in selling a concept as far out as the MOB, particular- ly to managers overseeing the program and administrators coor- dinating scheduling and funding."

He also said that "Analysts and visualization tools let us keep track of the pro- gram, evaluate various alterna- tives and continually improve the design faster and more economi- cally than would otherwise be possible.

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