News

At the request of several customers, the PIAS installer has now been extended to accept command line parameters for silent installation, custom installation folder and autorun.

For further details we refer to the manual: https://www.sarc.nl/images/manuals/pias/htmlEN/general.html#installation_command_line_parameters

Introduction
The seasoned PIAS user will have experienced that from time to time a module is subject to a radical rewrite or even a complete redesign. We have seen that the past years with the Fairway GUI, and with Compart being replaced by Layout. You will not have noticed yet, but some month ago we started the overhaul of Loading. For a variety of reasons, from which the most noticeable for the PIAS users will be:

• New file and data structure, with ample space for additional data of loading conditions, weight items etc.
• An additional umbrella data structure to manage the interrelationship between loading conditions.
• Tighter integration between specific loading modules (such as for container, RoRo and general cargo).
• A redesigned container module (with enhanced supported for odd-size containers).

A first step in this process was the systematization of the alphanumerical menus of loading conditions and weight items. This was in-house released at SARC a few months ago, and has been thoroughly tested ever since, so now is the right moment for a general release. Not all changes will be commented here, many will be clear and obvious. However, some imply a change in operation, and will be elaborated further below.

Filling all tanks of the same weight group
PIAS offered a special menu for the filling all tanks of the same weight group with the same percentage or density. This menu has been removed, because changing these parameters can now directly be done in the corresponding cells of the sub totals of weight groups.

Total weight and COG of a loading condition
Was once listed in an additional row at the end of the list of weight items. This has been replaced by an additional floating window with totalized weights and COGs. This window can be kept open besides other floats, such as for intact stability or longitudinal strength.

Missing tanks in Loading
The option to define an individual row to contain a certain tank (as defined in Layout) has been discarded. Instead, the upper menu bar now contains an option labelled “Add missing tanks”, which will add missing tanks that still have been assigned (in Layout) to be used in Loading. With this option all new tanks can be added to the loading condition with a single command.

Advice function
This function computes the weight and COG which are required to achieve a desired draft / trim combination. It has been restyled, and is now able to add a new row containing this weight.

Corresponding changes in Layout
In order to facility some present and future functionality in Loading, the property set of a compartment has been extended a bit. For this moment, the most relevant addition is:

• Automatic inclusion in weight item list, which indicates that this compartment is a real tank — as opposed to ‘misused’ compartments, e.g. partial grain holds, an unbounded compartment that spans the entire ship and ‘experimental’ compartments as design variation — which is to be included in the weight item list when the missing tanks function, as discussed above, is invoked.

With this modification in Layout we also used the opportunity to include all compartments’ parameters in the compartment overview list. This has been a request of multiple PIAS users.

Redraw menu list of weight items
Due to developments in the software, it is possible that the menu with the weight list is temporarily redrawn a little more often. This will disappear again in the near future.

The PIAS license is protected by means of a Codemeter Dongle (a physical USB hardware lock) or CMact license (a software based hardware lock) manufactured by Wibu Systems. For the communication between PIAS and the Codemeter solution, a runtime environment (driver) is required.

Wibu systems recently informed us on several detected vulnerabilities in their Codemeter Runtime Environment. We were advised to inform and advise our customers to download and install the latest available version of the runtime system in which these issues are addressed. This latest available version can be downloaded here; https://www.wibu.com/nl/support/user/user-software/file/download/7150.html

For De Heer land en water SARC delivered a series of stability booklets. De Heer land en water operate multiple modular pontoons for inland waterway maintenance works, such as dredging and construction. The pontoons are interconnectable, so for every job a suitable size can be chosen. However, once the ponton is equipped with a crane, according to the ES-TRIN regulations it is required to have a stability calculation for every configuration. The number of possible configurations was seemingly endless, considering the number of pontoons and the number of cranes.

In close consultation with the approving authority, SARC developed a method to quickly asses the safety of a large number of cranes on one specific pontoon. This greatly reduced the number of calculations that needed to be done compared to the normal way where each pontoon configuration and each crane is to be assessed separately.

This way SARC could offer a better price and delivery time. Also the approval process could be finished sooner.

Computations of PIAS often involve many steps, however, (paper) space and human attention span are too limited to present each and every intermediate computation sub result. So, only the most prominent results are printed — or listed, or exported, for that matter — and the experience over the past decades has shown that the standard PIAS output collection is adequate for the daily practice. So far, so good.

Yet, from time to time more detailed underlying sub-results are required, either for the insight of the program user / ship designer, or to show the computation’s foundation to others. For this purpose PIAS is equipped with a facility called “the intermediate results”, which simply collects a vast amount of computational sub results into plain text files. This feature is for some decades already available for stability (criteria) assessment, and for probabilistic damage stability.

However, times and habits are changing, and gradually some backsides of the conventional implementation became apparent:

1. As mentioned, intermediate results were collected in text files, while the user was expected to find this file and open it with a text editor. Although this procedure induces no fundamental problem, the experience has shown that over the course of the years computer users have become less and less confident in browsing the Windows folder structure, in finding this file, and opening it with a text reading tool.
2. Probabilistic damage stability computations may require quite some time. In particular with a detailed ship model, containing hundreds of compartments and thousands of damage cases. Although substantial computation cycles meet no fundamental limitation, their consequence is that mentioned files collection the intermediate results stay open for quite some time. Such as hours or a few day. Still, until so far there is no problem, but unfortunately some computer networks or Windows installation are not able to cope with files open for more than a day. And brutally abort the whole process. Quite annoying, but evaporating from Windows’ dungeons and as such unsolvable. Yet avoidable.
3. PIAS simply writes its intermediate results to files, inherently in the order of its computations, For sequential computations the output order will be the same as the computation order, so, in single-processing the order of the final results and the order of the intermediate results are intrinsically synchronized. However, when computations are spread over multiple processes the order of computations is arbitrary. And, hence, is the order of reporting of intermediate results. To put it bluntly: if 20 cores are busy simultaneously processing bits and pieces of computations, all their intermediate results will be mixed up.

For reasons 2 and 3, the computational core of PIAS has been reorganized a bit, so intermediate results are stored internally, without sending it directly to an output file. Only after all computations have finished, the collected results are redirected to some output medium, nicely in the intended order. For reason #1, the file nature and the file location is now irrelevant for the user, while PIAS contains a new function to invoke the Windows editor with all relevant intermediate data, without hassling with files, file types and directories.

Until now, the tank data from the weight list of a loading condition were interpolated on a pre-calculated tank table. This required tank tables to be calculated in the Layout module. In this implementation, the accuracy of the interpolated data was dependent on the step size of the computation of the table.

Recently, in PIAS a setting has been added which commands the tank data to be computed directly, exactly for the given weight or filling percentage. In this mode, the computational results are for actual level, trim, heel and tank geometry, and may hence deviate from (previously) interpolated results, which could be subject to interpolation inaccuracies.

With this setting, the tank table is calculated on demand, so tables are no longer stored with the compartments in Layout. After defining a tank, it can be used in Loading immediately.

PIAS was adapted around 2015 so that more than two calculation cores can be used in parallel.
In view of the overhead time involved in starting up a separate calculation task, a maximum of 8 simultaneous calculation tasks was chosen at the time.
Meanwhile, multithreading has been implemented in even more places within the PIAS for lengthy and compute-intensive tasks such as:
• probabilistic damage stability: the optimization of the damage boundaries.
• probabilistic damage stability: the generation of damage cases.

The last few years multi-core computers have become widely available and there are now PC‘s available for the common user which have ten or even more cores, where hyperthreading allows twenty or more threads to run simultaneously. Especially with time consuming calculation tasks, such as the ones mentioned above, the overhead time hardly plays a role and one can gain a considerable amount of time by calculating with more than 8 threads.

Therefore, the maximum number of parallel processes within PIAS has been increased from eight (octothreading) to twenty (vigintithreading).
To give the user a clear insight in the use of multiple threads, especially in time consuming calculations and in combination with vigintithreading, PIAS has been extended with a thread monitoring interface. This interface is visible during the calculations and shows relevant and real time information per thread, such as: information about the status, i.e. a description of the current task of the thread, start time and elapsed time. This thread monitoring interface is also available for single-, dual- and octothreading.

During this global pandemic we are trying to stay in touch with PIAS users and our other followers and keep them updated about our software. Just before the CoVid-19 pandemic we have visited some companies to inform them personally of our recent, current and future developments within SARC and on PIAS, Fairway and LOCOPIAS.

Because of the changed circumstances, we now want to demonstrate such online and we invite you to join in on our webinars about “Recent, current and future developments in PIAS”. On Thursday June 18th 2020 at 14:00 we started the first webinar via a live stream at YouTube via our channel. We encourage you to share this link with colleagues. Live streams are automatically converted into a video and can be viewed with the same link.

Subjects of all webinars:

Recent and current developments (18-06-2020 14:00 CET): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoPje3tdcYg
• SARC BV, current status
• Piping systems integrated in PIAS
• Stability over the ‘weakest axis”
• Simultaneous operation of multiple PIAS modules.
• Multithreading
• Other bits and pieces

Future developments: (25-06-2020 14:00 CET) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDB10hPEotA
• Integrated module for all types of cargo
• Second generation intact stability criteria
• Voyage concept in LOCOPIAS
• Ship motions module
• Load optimization

Fairway developments: (06-08-2020 14:00 CET) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLbhSnclE9Q
• Graphical User Interface has been rationalized
• Modelling in Fairway
• Export IGES LEANURBS

Layout developments: (13-08-2020 14:00 CET) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhkNsBp2fW0
• Weight of planes
• Volume of tank in GUI
• Interface bulkheads with CADMATIC
• Implementation piping

Loading / LOCOPIAS developments: (03-09-2020 14:00 CET) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-zX-gIcr5w
• Hopper stability in Loading
• Flooded tanks
• IMDG module

Miscellaneous developments: (10-09-2020 14:00 CET) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8r1BqZ-JWM
• Services like probabilistic damage stability calculation on a viginti core computer and many more.
• Academy
• And more

SARC has provided multiple licenses of PIAS to DNV GL Hamburg and Gdynia office.

DNV GL is an international classification society from Norway/Germany and has around 350 offices operating in more than 100 countries. DNV GL is the world’s largest classification society and is now able to approve stability booklets and on-board loading computer software with our PIAS software.

“After we have now purchased PIAS for our Poland/Gdynia and our Germany/Hamburg offices already, I would like to thank you and your whole team for the efficient and friendly workshops and the excellent support during our more than one year lasting PIAS trial phase. We are strongly looking forward to cooperate further with you in the same way.” said by Jan Wilkens of DNV GL.

In the build-up to the purchase of PIAS, DNV GL first tested the software extensively and there were several in-house courses to make sure they use the software in the best possible way. Various trained naval architects of SARC will continue to provide support via e-mail or telephone when necessary. Because DNV GL now uses PIAS, the cooperation between the DNV GL and SARCs has become even better. This will also be beneficial to other PIAS users who submit their stability calculations to DNV GL for approval. Now the approval process will probably run even smoother.

DNV GL employees at a PIAS course in 2019.

Now it is possible for the user to modify the PIAS page heading for all generated output. With this setting you can add and remove page headings and give it an identifiable name.

More detailed information can be found in the manual.

On May 1st, 1980, Herbert Koelman started a small company named SARC from his attic in Delft when the computer age was still in its infancy. You probably know the story from there: SARC currently employs 14 enthousiastic naval architects, we have done some 4500 projects, we have delivered some 1300 versions of LOCOPIAS, while PIAS is “world famous in the Netherlands and its wider surroundings”.

We have accomplished a lot together during our first 40 years. But what matters most is that we remain confident for the future, while we continue to work on new services and software features . Thank you for helping make SARC a fantastic company now and for decades to come.

In the last few years SARC and CADMATIC have joined forces to develop a collaborative ship design system together with Conoship.  This collaboration has been called the Dutch Collaborative Platform for the Design and Engineering of Ships (CPDES) research project.

In the early design stage, most small and medium-sized shipyards and design offices have difficulty controlling consistency when exchanging the ship’s arrangement and hull data between the 2D General Arrangement (G.A.) plan and stability analysis tools. The exchange of design data is often done manually and it can take days to implement design changes like repositioning decks or bulkheads in the G.A. plan and analyzing the effects on the various design calculation applications. Performing damage stability calculations very late in the basic design process, for example, often involves a lot of rework and increased building costs if the design does not fulfil the requirements.

Time-consuming design data exchanges and managing the consistency of design data are designers’ main challenges. Therefore, uniform, modern data exchange interfaces between early design software tools and steel design software tools are very beneficial.

With a focus on bulkheads & decks, compartments and piping, we created a V1.0 implementation, which covers intensively used data and actions, as well as a comprehensive manual and other instruction materials.

SARC and CADMATIC achieved the following for bulkheads and decks:

• A two-way 3D data exchange between PIAS and CADMATIC Hull
• A 3D data synchronization mechanism between PIAS and CADMATIC Hull
• Communicate design changes with synchronized Logbook entries
• User-friendly settings and features to facilitate communication between the systems

This function is now available in PIAS and CADMATIC Hull, please contact us by phone or e-mail for more information.

The PIAS menu has been modified, all modules are now collected into a single window. New additions are buttons to read latest PIAS news, check your PIAS version number and to open the manual.

Container ships navigating the major European inland waterways should comply with the ES-TRIN 2017/1 standard. Since the 1980s PIAS contains a dedicated module, named Rhine, for this regulation (and its predecessors). This module has now been discarded, for all its functions have been relocated to other PIAS modules.

All input can now be done with Hulldef, the applicable stability criteria can be set in the regular fashion, while Hydrotables will produce the required table of maximum allowable VCG.

As alternative to the approximation formulae from ES-TRIN, it is now also possible to compute the maximum VCG with direct calculations on basis of the foundational stability criteria.

Since its childhood, PIAS had the feature of an easy definition of upper appendages, such as deckhouses or camber, where manual commands were used to explicitly add or remove the appendages to or from the hullform. With the latest PIAS version this user command is not required anymore; once appendages have been defined, they will automatically be incorporated in the hullform, in accordance with their most recent definition.

Please be aware that in order to accommodate this new modus operandi, the file format containing the frame shapes has been updated. As usual with PIAS, conversion from old to new format is done automatically, without user intervention. However, it will be evident that elder PIAS version cannot read the new format, so in order to be prepared for the new format it is recommended to download and install the most recent PIAS version.

The PIAS module Resist, which can predict resistances of different ship types with nine published empirical methods, has been expanded with a shallow-water correction. The implemented method is based on H.C. Raven, “A new correction procedure for shallow-water effects in ship speed trials”, Proceedings of PRADS2016 (2016), Kopenhagen, Denmark. In 2017 the ITTC has accepted this method, and now it can be used in Resist to predict the increase in resistance when sailing in shallow waters.

Output table of Resist with the shallow-water correction enabled. Marked in red are the newly calculated resistance components, the additional viscous resistance due to shallow water Rv,add and the additional resistance due to sinkage in shallow-water conditions Rs,add.

The 2020 edition of the intact stability code has been extended with, among other things, regulations on the maximum allowable chain force for anchor handling vessels. The implementation of these rules in PIAS has been released on August 21, 2019. This calculation involves many iterations and decompositions of anchor forces, much too many to be included in output. In order to gain some insight in the calculation flow, one of the PIAS users ordered at SARC a manual elaboration of the calculation steps for one particular test case. This client was so friendly to allow copies of this document to be distributed to other PIAS users. You can contact us if you are interested in such a copy.

Earlier this year we have sent our customers information on the upgrade of our software license protection mechanism from the hardware lock brand “Sentinel”  to the Codemeter license.

Early next year we will switch permanently to the use of the Codemeter implementation.

After this date you can still use the sentinel, but if you want to change something to your license, you need to switch to the Codemeter first. For this switch below mentioned costs are applicable.

The PIAS software license is currently protected by means of a hardware lock and for the past decades we have used a lock of the brand “Sentinel“ for this.

We have come to the day that the sentinel does no longer provide us with sufficient means to meet the demands of both our customers and ourselves for a more and more flexible license administration and management.

Therefore we have decided to implement a new type of hardware lock named Codemeter, provided by Wibu systems.

The Codemeter implementation has the following main advantages and benefits;

•  Allows for remote update of the license:  Additional modules and licenses can be remotely enabled or disabled very easily, by means of exchanging a license file with SARC by email. No reinstallation or update of the PIAS software is required, so no down-time.
• Allows for trail licenses or temporary rental without required update of the PIAS software
• Gives more flexibility with respect to the number of licenses per module or even a specific function. It is no longer required to keep equal numbers of licenses for all purchased PIAS modules.
• Better administrative tools for monitoring used licenses on your system or network. Furthermore, with Codemeter it is possible to integrate with third-party license monitoring and management software, for example OpenLM.

The use of the Sentinel is still supported, but will be phased out in the near future. New developments will only be available with the new Codemeter implementation. So although the sentinel remains supported for some time, we urge you to make the switch to the Codemeter implementation now.

From January 2020, changes to your PIAS license using the sentinel will require an update to the Codemeter implementation.

Please contact us if you want to use the temporarily offer, or if you require more information.

Different regulations are used for vessels with designation Anchor Handling:

1. Norwegian Maritime Directorate (NMD) from 2007: Guidelines for immediate measures on supply ships and tugs that are used for anchor handling.
2. Bureau Veritas (BV) amendments January 2014, Pt. D Ch. 14 Sec. 2 Reg. 5: Additional requirements for anchor handling vessels.
3. Intact Stability Code (IS) 2020, part B, section 2.7.
4. GL rules I-6, 2012 edition, Section 27 Anchor Handling and Towing Ships
5. Other?

These rules, though sharing a similar purpose, prescribe different formulae for the forces and moments to be taken into account when assessing stability for anchor handling vessels. The results of these calculations can be expressed in tables of allowable anchor chain forces, or in a polar plot of maximum allowable anchor chain forces for a given loading condition.

SARC has implemented both polar plots of allowable anchor chain forces (for a given loading condition) and the tables of allowable anchor chain forces for the first 3 of the requirements listed above. Still, many questions are asked because results may sometimes conflict with users’ expectations. Additionally, some of these rules include some formulae of which the purpose and background are obscure.

Just as for other complex stability calculations, SARC will offer a workshop/training on the ins and outs of above rules.

The following subjects will be presented:

• Overview of listed requirements:
  • Calculation of moments and forces included
  • Background of specific presumptions
  • Required input data
• Procedural approach for:
  • Tables of allowable anchor chain forces
  • Polar plots of allowable anchor chain forces
• Examples in PIAS and LOCOPIAS
• How to verify of results (example).
• Q&A

If you are interested, please contact SARC for further details. The first workshop is planned on December 13 2019, from 10:00 to 16:00 in Bussum, the Netherlands.

To speed up time consuming calculations (more specific, parts of the probabilistic damage stability calculations), PIAS uses parallelization of the calculation process where possible. For example the generation of damage cases and the calculation of damage boundaries is multithreaded.

Multithreading in PIAS is available as dual-threading (up to 2 cores), Octo-threading (up to 8 cores) and will be available soon in Viginty-threading (up to 20 cores).

Up till now, the feedback of the application during the calculation progress was limited. To improve this feedback, PIAS has been extended with a thread monitoring interface, which gives detailed information on the status of the available, and working threads. A print screen of this interface is shown in the picture below.

A select set of frequently used functions in Fairway are now just one click away, directly accessible from the new tool bars. Tool bars in Fairway can be rearranged by dragging them to a different location around the drawing area, or floating anywhere on top of the drawing area. Individual tool bars can be hidden and shown by right-clicking on the tool bar area or from the [Window -> Tool Bars] menu. Users that prefer to activate functions using <Alt> key combinations instead may be interested to switch all tool bars off, which will give them a bigger drawing area.

It will be well known that for the definition of spaces and compartments in PIAS, the ‘physical planes’ provide a very efficient modelling tool. Obviously, these planes will in practice be used to model bulkheads and decks.

Recently, the data storage of the physical planes has been enhanced to include a specific weight (which is the average weight of the plane in ton/m²). This is used in a new feature, labelled ‘Area table’, which includes for each plane its area, CoG and weight. At the end of the table total weight and CoG is listed.

Although this table provides only a rough approximation of the internal steel  hull weight, it is still a useful tool in the early design stage, because it is so tightly integrated with the design model of the internal geometry. At present, the shell weight is not included in this list, although the weight and CoG of the shell plates can be computed with the shell plate expansion function of Fairway.

IMDG amendment 39-18 is now published, may be used from 1/1/2019 and becomes mandatory on 1/1/2020 when amdt 38-16 is no longer valid. The overview of changes has been published by Hazcheck: http://www.imdgsupport.com/IMDG_2018_Changes.asp

Last year we released the IMDG module for the first time. Now SARC has integrated the IMDG Amendment 39-18 into the LOCOPIAS IMDG module. The updated module is available and ready to be delivered. If you would like to request the updated LOCOPIAS IMDG module (IMDG Amendment 39-18) now, please send us a message. 

IMO Intact Stability Code is in its 2020 version extended to include a section 2.7, “Ships engaged in anchor handling operations”.  These have now been added to the rule set of  PIAS’ Maxchain module, as well as in the polar plots of LOCOPIAS.

Those who followed the newsletters of the past years will have noticed that PIAS has seriously been revised and modernized.

An important topic in this process has been the replacement of Compart with the Layout module. However, PIAS modules using compartment data were still based on the Compart data format, so Layout stored the compartment data both in native Layout format, as well as in Compart format. For the user this was invisible, so as such it was no real objection, but this duality obstructs further software developments. For this reason, all modules of PIAS have been adapted to native Layout format. This new software has been in use within SARC for some time, and has been intensively tested, so we consider it now to be the time for a general release. Actually, you will not see any change in operation of PIAS, although compart-related computations (such as damage stability) might occasionally give marginally different results with the new software. Please be assured that, thanks to the enhanced compartment definition method of Layout, differences — if they occur at all — will be in the direction of increased accuracy.

Compart has been removed from the set of PIAS modules. An act that we will perform with some melancholy because this piece of software has since 1985 served thousands of PIAS users with modelling and computations of an estimated million tanks, holds and spaces.

On June 15, 2018 IMO adopted resolution MSC.421(98), titled “Amendments to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea”. With respect to probabilistic damage stability, this encompasses:

• A change of the required subdivision index for passenger vessels.
• Changes in the formula for the probability of survival, applicable to damage cases that involve a ro-ro space.

PIAS module Probdam has been extended with these changes and is currently being tested. From July 1, 2019 this functionality is available for all users of Probdam.

When designing or defining a ship for some tanks or compartments target capacities apply. In those cases it will be convenient to have permanent feedback on the actual volume of a compartment. This feature is now available in PIAS’  Layout module.

The output of damage stability (summary) has been given a makeover and has become much shorter than before. This output can also be imported into Microsoft Word or Excel to edit it yourself. For each damage case it is now possible to see briefly and clearly whether this case is complies or not. The complete output has remained unchanged and everything can be found there down to the last detail.

Example of new summary output damage stability

Update October 2019:

In the January 2019 issue of the Naval Architect journal, an article has been published about Computer-Aided Ship Design (CASD) software. Discussed subjects are:

• User-friendliness of software in practice.
• Root cause analysis of ill-designed software.
• Examples of PIAS software after proactively envisioning what the user really needs.

With kind permission of The Naval Architect the article is accessible via this link in our Publications section:

Lost in the stars

Already for some twenty years, the Probdam damage case generator has a feature, called compartment connections, for generating complex intermediate stages of flooding. This tool has been improved so that a multitude of complex intermediate stages will be generated, instead of just a single one previously. This results in a more realistic flooding pattern of compartments through the defined compartment connections. As an example, see the picture below which shows the previous mechanism, as well as the present one. In this example compartment A is initially damaged and compartments B and C are being flooded due to the compartment connections with compartment A.

SARC is already present in the maritime software industry for more than 35 years. Our goal is to create software for naval architects which programmed from the mind and practice of a naval architect, in order to make it quick and easy to use. One of the most challenging parts of software programming is to make the software is fast enough for the most comprehensive calculations. As years got by, on one hand computers became faster, while on the other hand there is a tendence to calculate more and more.  Therefore the software programmers had to make sure they would keep up with the developments of the hardware.

For a long time past a PC generally had one processor, containing only a single processing unit (core). That implies that the computer can process one task at a time. However, there is a tendency where a computer is equipped with multiple real or virtual processors. So, this technology enables a program to execute tasks parallel and in 2005 PIAS has been adapted for that facility by making the following tasks available for simultaneous processing:

• Intact and damage stability.
• Probabilistic damage stability.
• Computation of intersections between bulkheads and/or compartment boundaries in PIAS’ Layout module.

So, over more then a decade ago we already developed hyper-threading within PIAS. In later years hardware companies kept developing their processors which also led to new developments in our software. Dual threading processors have led to multithreading in PIAS. Additionally, modern CPU’s are equipped with AVX (Advanced Vector eXtensions) which facilitates eight concurrent arithmetic operations in one processor cycle. More information can be found in the white paper ‘Acceleration of PIAS by hardware support‘ from May 2017.

PIAS offers two speed enhancing packages:

• PIAS/ES 1, with original Windows threading facilities, limited to two threads (dualthreading).
• PIAS/ES 2, containing AVX and application of Windows thread pool technology. Optimized for 4 to 8 threads but limited to 8 threads (hence its name octothreading).

We have done some tests for an “average” PIAS ship, with damage cases up to 8 simultaneous damaged compartments, resulting in 525 damage cases, without so-called “external subcompartments”. (Measured timings are in seconds)

Hopper dredger stability (e.g. dr-68 or Bureau Veritas N.I. 144) computation used to be present in PIAS in a separate module Hopstab. In February 16 of this year a new version of PIAS’ stability module Loading was released, where all hopper stability effects have been integrated (and enhanced, compared to Hopstab). The dr-78 and dr-68 stability regulations require a hopper dredger also to comply with requirements of probabilistic damage stability. This has been available for some decades in PIAS, based on the hopper particulars as defined in Hopstab. Recently, PIAS’ probabilistic damage stability module has been updated, so it now applies the hopper and loading data as defined in Loading. The new modus operandi of probabilistic damage stability for a hopper dredger is discussed in the manual.

After this enhancement, module Hopstab has become obsolete and will be discarded. This marks the end of the software renewal process around hopper dredger stability in PIAS, and implies that specific hopper-related data files from elder projects cannot be used anymore for computations. Please refer to the hopper stability manual chapter for further discussion.

Split hopper vessels

The applicable rules are available in all European languages: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32006L0087

Per 1 juli 2009 is in de Binnenvaartwet vastgelegd dat eigenaars van jachten langer dan 20 meter een Certificaat van Onderzoek (CvO) moeten hebben. Dit certificaat is nodig om op Europese binnenwateren te mogen varen. Destijds is er een overgangsregeling ingesteld die eigenaren tot 31 december 2018 de gelegenheid geeft om een geldig Certificaat van Onderzoek te verkrijgen.

Alle drijvende werktuigen die na 1-7-2009 gebouwd zijn moeten worden gecertificeerd (Certificaat van Onderzoek) en de nieuwe eisen en overgangsbepalingen voldoen. Drijvende werktuigen van voor 1-7-2009 (waarvan de kiel is gelegd voor 30-12-2008) moeten per 31-12-2018 gecertificeerd zijn. Deze categorie drijvende werktuigen wordt aangeduid als ‘bestaande vloot’.

Er is in geen geval later dan 30 december 2018 een Certificaat van Onderzoek of Communautair Binnenvaartcertificaat voor Binnenschepen verplicht voor:

• alle vaartuigen met een lengte van 20 m of meer
• alle vaartuigen waarvan het product van de lengte, de breedte en de diepgang meer dan 100 m³ bedraagt (het onderwater blokvolume van meer dan 100 m³, exclusief kiel, zwaarden en andere aanhangende zaken, dus ook korter dan 20 m)
• alle sleep- en duwboten, ongeacht de lengte, die zijn bestemd om de hiervoor bedoelde vaartuigen of drijvende inrichtingen te slepen, te duwen of langszij mee te voeren
• alle passagiersschepen (vervoer van meer dan 12 passagiers naast de bemanning)
• drijvende inrichtingen

Meer informatie kan gevonden worden op de site van IL&T: https://ilent.nl/misdebootniet 

For the computation of wind heeling moments, in PIAS the windage area can be given. That used to be limited to a single contour, with some maximum number of points, which was sufficient for the common use the past 25 years. However, when importing the contour shape from a CAD system that maximum can easily be exceeded. For this reason this PIAS’ module Hulldef has been extended to accommodate a wind contour with a number of sub-contours (each with a resistance coefficient), with an unlimited number of points.

Type vessel: General / Bulk cargo for inland waterways

Rule dimensions:

• L = 110,00 m
• B = 10,46 m
• D = 3,2 m
• T = 3,2 m

Delivery: Lines plan for a single screw inland waterway vessel.

For Shipbuilding Solutions our engineers performed the lines plan design for a general cargo vessel built for the Dutch inland waterways. They started off with a general arrangement plan and made a unique design for the hull form. Besides the hull form design, they also have faired the vessel with Fairway to optimize the building process.

After designing the vessel there also have been made some Rhine container calculations with PIAS.

Righting (and heeling) levers of stability are determined by dividing the righting (or heeling) moment by the ship’s displacement. In intact condition, the displacement to choose for that division is unambiguously that of the loading condition under consideration. In damage stability, the choice is not that obvious. However, the standard suggested by the relevant regulations has conventionally been “Constant displacement”, so that has always been the standard choice in PIAS. For some time now an alternative choice is also available — as presented in “MSC.1/Circ.1461, guidelines for verification of damage stability requirements for tankers” and “IACS 110 Guideline for Scope of Damage Stability Verification on new oil tankers, chemical tankers and gas carriers” — i.e. “Intact displacement minus liquid cargo loss”. The choice between these two alternatives is now available as a setting in PIAS, please consult the manual for more details.

SARC has successfully delivered the on-board loading computer software for the new cargo vessel Arklow Villa (YN 730). This is the last ship in a series of ten 5,150 DWT traders that SARC has fitted out at Royal Bodewes Shipyard to Bureau Veritas class standards. They are all owned by Arklow Shipping and are being operated and managed by Arklow Shipping Netherlands. The first vessel in the series was be delivered in October 2015.

Bodewes & SARC
This is not for the first time that Bodewes has ordered the on-board loading computer at SARC. Other recent projects like the NB 803 Coralius; a unique LNG flex tanker that was nominated for the Next Generation Ship Award at Norshipping 2015 is also equipped with LOCOPIAS. At Bodewes they are using our PIAS software to calculate the stability of their vessels. The advantage of this is that SARC can use their PIAS-files for the base of LOCOPIAS, so there is no extra costs for input of ship data and the same files are used for the stability booklets.

The launch of the Arklow Villa has been filmed and uploaded to YouTube.

The stability required to ensure the safety of a ship, its crew and the environment is laid down in legislation. In PIAS the major part of legislation is predefined, readily available, while the underlying parametric editor facilities allows the definition of less frequently used or very specific criteria. More information about manipulating and selecting sets of stability cirteria can be found in the manual: https://www.sarc.nl/images/manuals/pias/htmlEN/stabcrit.html.

We have created a document to provide a coherent and clear overview of the stability criteria. This is achieved by collecting legislations set by the IMO, European Union and local authorities, and categorizes these legislations by operating area and ship type. Please send us a message if you are interested in this document including the .req files for PIAS.

Earlier this year we have informed you about the update of the stability criteria within PIAS: https://www.sarc.nl/update-of-stability-criteria-in-pias/ .

Although the NURBS surface method is not very suitable for the hull design process as such, it is widely used for interfacing. So, when a hull design is to be used downstream, e.g. for engineering, CFD analyses or visualization, the Fairway hullform has to be converted to a set of NURBS surfaces.

The first step is identifying larger, four-sided areas, which is essential because its four-sidedness is an intrinsic requirement of the NURBS. The next step is to convert these surfaces to NURBS. In this paper the mathematical nitty-gritty will be omitted, the interested reader is redirected to a special conference paper on this subject.

Anyway, the result is that by some neat mathematical processing, a patchwork of NURBS surface is created with the following properties:

• Guaranteed gap-free along common boundaries between adjacent surfaces.
• The number of vertices of the resulting NURBS surfaces is determined automatically, and is the minimal required to achieve this gap-freeness, as well as accurate representation of the original Fairway surface.

This method is baptized LEANURBS (an acronym for Lowest Effective Amount of NURBS). Its implementation in Fairway is demonstrated by the following sequence of screen dumps, from which the first shows the ship hull in Fairway. The second is a screen dump where the hull is subdivided into four-sided regions and the last one is the IGES file in Rhino.

Herbert Koelman, who founded SARC in 1980, has recently been appointed as Lector Maritime Innovative Technologies at the Maritime Institute Willem Barentsz (MIWB). The function of a Lector is initiating and managing applied research, as well as supporting education. This appointment is for two days a week, the other three days Koelman will remain at SARC, in software development and general management.

MIWB is an academy within NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, and offers BSc and MSc educations in the design and operations of ships. The research objectives of the Maritime Innovative Technologies research group are in the field of innovation in the field of maritime operations, design and production, and in particular the relationship between these three. One of the first projects envisaged will be to convert measured operational (big) data into design tools for ship design. For more information on this subject you can contact Herbert.Koelman@NHL.nl.

In Lector jackets from left to right: former Lector Joop Splinter, Herbert Koelman and Lector Maritime Law Welmoed van der Velde

From January 2018 the new 38th amendment of the IMDG Code will become mandatory and to invigorate this an IMDG module has been added to LOCOPIAS.

IMDG  (International Maritime Dangerous Goods) Code is accepted as an international guideline to the safe maritime transportation or shipment of dangerous goods or hazardous materials. This (mandatory) Code has been designed to protect crew members and to prevent marine pollution.

The IMDG code extension in the LOCOPIAS container module assists in the loading of dangerous cargo by real time validation against the IMDG requirements. It presents the operator an overview of conflicts in segregation and stowage requirements. Current implemented version is amendment 38-16 (the most recent version of the code). The complete white paper can be found here.

IMDG extension in the container module of LOCOPIAS

Last week our colleagues provided a probabilistic damage stability training in Aalst, Belgium, the home base of Jan de Nul, a leading and maritime construction company. To know more about the trainings we provide, please check the ‘Training’ page.

Jan de Nul following the probabilistic damage stability training

This manual is intended to explain how to verify the Loading Computer System (LCS). The LCS, in this case LOCOPIAS, must be verified at regular intervals to check the correct functioning of the loading instrument. EBIS is asking for a Class approved ship stability calculation program for on-board use and there muest be records indicating that the operational accuracy of the ships stability calculation program is tested regularly.

The manual is in English and Dutch.

Already for some decades, PIAS has the capability to compute intact and damage stability for open-top hopper vessels, e.g. as required by the dr-67 & dr-68 regulations for hopper dredgers with a reduced freeboard. This function, which was available in a separate PIAS module, has recently be integrated in PIAS’ standard stability module, called Loading. With this enhancement the hopper stability computations can now be combined with all Loading’s tools and options, and is now also available for the LOCOPIAS on-board loading software. More details of the new modus operandi can be found in the manual.

Example of stability output, indicating cargo and eater levels.

SARC is pleased to announce the extension of LR (Lloyd’s Register) Type Approval for their LOCOPIAS on-board loading computer software. This approval certifies LOCOPIAS products for use in LR class ships in the (damage) stability and longitudinal strength of the vessel.

“We are very happy with this certification,” said Herbert Koelman, Managing Director of SARC. “Not only does this help support our ship building and engineering customers, as well as their suppliers, but all of our customers.” Koelman explains, “Having passed the stringent LR approval, is a statement of the durability and reliability of our products.”

LOCOPIAS is on-board loading computer software. Derived from the PIAS ship design software, it uses the same proven technology to achieve optimum loading within the limits for strength, stability, draft, etc. This ensures maximum safety of the vessel, it’s crew, cargo or passengers and the environment. The certificate can be found here.

A number of standard stability requirements have been programmed, an overview is presented in the figures below.

You might know that IMO is currently developing an additional set of intact stability criteria, the so-called “Second generation intact stability criteria”. It is expected that its development will be finalized around 2019, so it might become sensible to verify some of your ships or designs against these criteria. An occasional PIAS user is already working on that, but for those who lack the time or resources SARC offers this as a service.

To make sure this won’t happen

Given a ship design and an intact stability booklet, the scan consists of evaluating a number of loading conditions (with a maximum of 5) against those particular 2^nd gen.stab. criteria which have reached a certain state of maturity:

• Parametric roll, first level, and second level (C1 factor only).
• Pure loss of stability, level one and two (however, the latter without the relaxation of wave height up to the highest 3%).
• Surfriding and broaching, first level.
• Dead ship stability, first level.
• Excessive acceleration, first level.

The deliverable will be a report with results and conclusions.

Please find here a leaflet with more details.

PIAS’ Layout module is able to produce tank sounding tables with a variety of parameters and units. Commonly, if the ullage or sounding parameters are included in such a table, those are determined in a user-defined sounding pipe, which can exist of two or more points. The latter to model curved or knuckled pipes. Additional, it is also possible to define just a single point, which is then used as the reference point for ullage or sounding. Conventionally, for such a case the ullage or sounding was computed under the assumption that the measuring tape goes through this reference point in a vertical direction. On September 22, 2017, this mechanism has been changed, and now a direction perpendicular to the water plane (so, including the effect of heel and trim) is applied, which is more realistic.

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On September 13, Herbert Koelman received a best presentation award out of the hands of the chairman of the South African Institute of Marine Engineers and Naval Architects for his presentations held at the HIPER (High-Performance Marine Vehicles) conference held in Zevenwacht, South-Africa.

Kevin Watson (left, SAIMENA) and the two price winners Anriëtte Bekker (middle, Stellenbosch University) and Herbert Koelman (right, SARC).

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In PIAS, for each particular project of vessel the side of heel for intact and damage stability calculations is user-configurable, where the options are:

1. Portside (PS).
2. Starboard (SB).
3. The side of the statical angle of inclination. With this setting, the side of the worst stability is estimated with this method: if this statical angle is to PS then the calculation is made to that side, otherwise to SB.
4. Portside and starboard. With this setting there will be no a priori assumption on the “worst side”, instead the stability will be calculated to PS as well as SB, while both sides are fully taken into account in the stability assessment.

The first three options have been available in PIAS from its beginning, the fourth option was added by the end of 2016.

In a separate document Assessment of intact and damage stability to PS and SB in PIAS the background of this feature is described into some detail.

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PIAS, as many other stability programs, has from its conceptualization in the 1980s determined the intact and damage stability (or, to be more precise, the GZ) with respect to centerline plane. That is not always correct, in particular with hull shapes which are significant asymmetrical in longitudinal direction the GZ should be determined with respect to a rotated plane (rotated around a vertical axis). Occasionally, people have inquired for a possible extension of PIAS towards the effects of stability around the axis of weakest stability, and the recurring reply of SARC was that this would certainly be feasible, and could be produced on order. In 2017 that was finally implemented in PIAS.

In a separate document Calculation of stability around the weakest heeling axis with PIAS the background of this feature is described into some detail.

You don’t want this to happen

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Some tasks of PIAS can be quite computation-intensive, such as the computation of intact stability (in particular if enhanced features are active, such as the shift of liquid method, and/or stability around the weakest axis) and damage stability, but also the generation of curved surfaces in Fairway. Time was that each new computer generation was faster than its predecessor, mainly thanks to processor clock frequency increase, but that has come to a halt a decade ago. Nowadays, CPU manufacturers try to stimulate performance gains by means of parallelization, so that multiple tasks can be executed simultaneously. In the recent weeks, at SARC, we have been working to optimize (LOCO-)PIAS with these technologies, with the goal to cramp out all possible performance out of modern hardware.

This resulted for some PIAS applications in a speed increase of a factor 3 to 8, depending on the task and the hardware.

In a separate document Acceleration of PIAS by hardware support the background and results are described into some detail.

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For our General Cargo module in LOCOPIAS we now have a connection with the software Visual Cargo Care (lashing & securing).

Visual Cargo Care is an advanced software solution for lashing & securing of heavy-lift and project cargo. The Visual Cargo Care solution for Heavy-Lift & Project cargo helps you to be more effectively calculating acceleration forces, applying Lashing & Securing and creating reports for Method Statements.  http://visualcargocare.com/

Visual Cargo Care screenshot

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A Ballast Water Management Plan must be approved and on board by 8 September 2017. With the deadline approaching, SARC has information and resources to help you. Ships of 400 gt and above are required to have on board and implement a Ballast Water Management Plan approved by Class. The Ballast Water Management Plan is specific to each ship and includes a detailed description of the actions to be taken to implement the Ballast Water Management requirements and supplemental Ballast Water Management practices.

Ballast Water Management Plan example

The Ballast Water Management Plan is required to:

• Assist the ship in complying with international regulations to minimise the risk of the transfer of harmful aquatic organisms and pathogens in ships’ ballast water and associated sediments.
• Identify the ship’s Ballast Water Management Officer.
• Consider ship safety elements, provide information to PSC officers on the ship’s ballast handling system and confirm that ballast water management can be effectively planned.
• Include training on BWM operational practices.
• Be written in the working language of the ship. If this language is not English, French or Spanish a translation into one of these languages must be included.

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Update 26-07-2017

The MEPC, at its 71st meeting, reached a compromise on compliance dates for ballast water discharge. Ships constructed after 8th September 2017 must comply on delivery, while existing ships in general must comply by the first IOPP renewal after 8th September 2019.

Under the proposal, ships constructed on or after September 8, 2017 are to comply with the D-2 standard on or after that date.
Vessels built before September 8, 2017, are to comply with the D-2 standard at the first MARPOL IOPP renewal survey completed on or after:

•  September 8, 2019 (Reg B-3/10.1.1); or
•  September 8, 2017, only if a MARPOL IOPP renewal survey is completed on or after September 8, 2014, but prior to September 8, 2017 (Reg B-3/10.1.2).

The 16^th International Ship Stability Workshop, ISSW 2017 was held in Belgrade, Serbia, from 5^th to 7^th of June, 2017. During this workshop Herbert Koelman had given a speech about the practicalities of loading instruments for Inland Waterway Tankers.

Intact and damage stability properties of Inland WaterWay (IWW) tankers are being considered to a much greater depth today than they used to be, because the 2015 edition of the applicable legislation not only requires an extensive (damage-) stability manual to be issued, but also an on-board loading computer to be installed. Although the formal framework is set by the rules, there are quite some issues left for interpretation or additional guidance, where also the classification societies play a role. Besides those practical issues, in this paper also data collection, specific loading instrument functions and loading software assessment are discussed. The entire paper can be found in our publications.

Read more about our loading instrument for IWW tankers.

In order to accommodate future program enhancements, PIAS’ module Layout has been updated as per May 18, 2017. As usual, this format update is upwards compatible, which means that newer PIAS versions can read the old format, but older versions cannot read the new format. So, in order to be prepared to receive PIAS files in the contemporary format, users are advised to update PIAS at a convenient moment.

In the April 2017 issue of the Naval Architect journal, an article has been published about recent developments in PIAS. Discussed subjects are:

• The recent restructuring of the PIAS program suit. PIAS used to contain quite some separate modules, from which many have merged into core functional modules for e.g. hullform design, compartment modelling, intact and deterministic damage stability and probabilistic damage stability. Presently under construction is a local cloud which enables data sharing between the PIAS modules.
• Conventional data exchange, such as file export to CFD, IGES and the Poseidon scantling program from DNV.GL.
• Non-conventional data exchange, notable the collaborative design and engineering platform as currently under development in collaboration with CADMATIC.
• Modelling of geometry of pipe lines in PIAS, and its use in design evaluation (such as probabilistic damage stability) and engineering.

With kind permission of The Naval Architect the article is accessible via this link:

Modular design system re-galvanized_The Naval Architect_April 2017

Our previous leaflets are made in 2011 and we needed some refreshment because we have developed a lot the last few years. Underneath you can find all of the leaflets, but also on our Downloads page.

• PIAS : English
• LOCOPIAS: English
• Company: English
• LOCOPIAS Inland Waterway: Dutch

We have reached the 1000 vessels which are equipped with LOCOPIAS! Take a look for the complete list at https://www.sarc.nl/locopias/examples

PIAS’ Probdam module is equipped with functions for damage case generation and for the automatic determination of damage boundaries. The algorithm for the latter has been enhanced for two reasons:

• To accommodate damages over centerline (as already announced in the newsletter of October 2015).
• To be able to handle non-foursided compartment shapes. With PIAS’ old compartment definition module Compart all subcompartments were limited to four sides. Newlay, the replacement module of Compart, supports a wider variety of shapes, including subcompartments having from three to twelve sides. Because all damage stability modules are being prepared to support this extended definition, the Probdam damage case management library must be updated accordingly.

The update of this algorithm has three consequences:

• The found extent of damage can be slightly different than with the previous algorithm. By the way, the manual contains a short elucidation on the process of finding the damage boundaries.
• Not each and every damage case is indeed possible, given the rules and constraints of SOLAS2009. This new algorithm has been further optimized to find matching damage boundaries, where with the previous algorithm it could have been concluded that the damage was impossible.
• Although finding the extent of damage may be a time-consuming process, the old algorithm was highly optimized to do it as swift as possible. The new algorithm has to evaluate more complex cases – over CL, and non-foursided – which inevitably will result in occasionally longer processing times. However, please be assured that SARC has used every option to keep the performance high. In this respect contemporary computer hardware facilities can also be employed, with PIAS’ octothreading speed enhancer, which is scheduled to be released within some weeks.

A version of PIAS’ Probdam with this enhanced algorithm will be available for download from September 6, 2016.

Although the freeboard calculation module of PIAS is not core of the suite, it is still intensively used in many phases of the ship design process. For that reason we have taken up this module — from which the origin lies 20 years back — and brought it in line with the look and feel of the other PIAS modules. One enhancement is that hullform parameters can now directly be derived from PIAS’ hull model. The applied algorithms remains unchanged, so computation results will not be affected.

PIAS’ Newlay module – for definition of the internal geometry, such as planes, bulkhead and compartments – has been enhanced with a function to compute the area of the outer surfaces of compartments. These figures are intended to serve as a guide for the paint area of compartments.

https://www.sarc.nl/images/manuals/pias/htmlEN/newlay.html#newlay_complist_tanktabellen_surfacearea

Since its establishment in 1980, SARC has been using the Good Vibes font for its logo. On May 1^st SARC celebrated its 36^th birthday, which we consider to be a good opportunity for a fresh logo:

The logo designer has motivated his creation with these words: “A wave is the most identifying visual form that symbolizes water in its purest way. Water is the only constant element SARC always takes into account. Incorporating the wave as the integral part of the letter ‘A’ guarantees such a strong and iconic visual appearance. The logotype – as a typographic only logo – by itself is one of the strongest categories of logos. When executed right, it will become the company’s synonym”. In the curly shape of the A the former seascape of our business cards and leaflets is reflected, as depicted in one of the designers’ design sketches:

A second renewal concerns SARC’s telephone numbers. The general number has been changed into +31 850409040 (although the former +31 35 6915024 will remain in service for some time). Furthermore, each member of the permanent SARC crew can be reached directly, at these numbers:

Finally, also the website has been refreshed. From today it is available at the familiar www.sarc.nl. Essentially, it contains the same information as before, just with a new layer on top of it, which shows in a glance the products and services that SARC is offering. The bottom of the home page contains a brand new animation movie, which shows the world of SARC in 90 seconds.

De afgelopen jaren hebben Numeriek Centrum Groningen (NCG), Conoship en Scheepsbouwkundig Advies en Reken Centrum (SARC) een pilot ontwikkeld waarbij scheepsontwerp- en engineeringssoftware van verschillende herkomst, m.n. NUPAS-CADMATIC en PIAS, zich gedraagt als één systeem.

Om dit concept verder uit te bouwen is, met behulp van Netherlands Maritime Technology (NMT), een voorstel gedaan voor een MIT-R&D-samenwerkingsproject. Dat is recent gehonoreerd, waardoor de ontwikkeling nu in volle vaart verder kan gaan.

Zie voor meer informatie maritimetechnology.nl.

PIAS’ internal libraries will be enhanced in order to benefit from facilities of more recent versions of MS-Windows. This implies that future versions of (LOCO-)PIAS will not be able to operate on Windows XP.

For program users who still rely on XP a backdoor will be available for some time. This has internally to be set by SARC, so if you require an XP version please inform SARC.

For many years, the hullform modeller of PIAS, Fairway, has a capacity to import the hull shape from files in (several formats of) IGES or DXF format. We noticed a rising application of trimmed surfaces in IGES, for that reason the Fairway import now also supports this IGES sub format.

SARC is to present two papers at the Compit conference this year.

The paper by Herbert Koelman concerns the integration of PIAS with other design tools. Experience indicates that coupling dedicated software packages is a better strategy than trying to develop monolithic “one code fits them all” ship design software.

The paper by Bastiaan Veelo is about the potential application of Fairway, PIAS’ ship hull modeller, to propeller blade design.

The Dutch Government and a consortium of four companies (SARC, Mastership, Polyworx and MHE Engineering) based in Netherlands signed the agreement “Yacht engineering and Design China” on AThe consortium for this Partners for International Business (PIB) project consists of Dutch leading companies of the yacht design and engineering sector. Jointly they can offer to the Chinese yacht builders the know-how, engineering solutions and software tools for all the required disciplines for yacht design and engineering such as steel, aluminium and composite hulls design and construction, piping/HVAC and interior design. The consortium aims to position itself as a preferred supplier for the growing Chinese yacht building industry.

In order to realise this goal, the project partners are supported by the Dutch diplomatic services in China such as the Dutch Embassy, Consulates and NBSO’s. The key activities to be undertaken during the project are:

• Promotional and sales activities
• Training and knowledge transfer (SMTP)
• K2K cooperation between a Dutch University and University of Wuhan

The project has a duration of two years from April 2015 to April 2017. The focus will be on China South and China North. At the end of the project, the consortium aims to increase the revenue from the Chinese market, both for the consortium partner and other Dutch companies.

For Dutch visitors, more info can be found on the website of the Dutch goverment (Dutch article).

The new AND rules of January 1^st 2013 include a requirement for stability software on board of a double-walled inland waterway tanker, ADN type-C with effect from 1^st of January 2015. A computer loading instrument, covering stability and strength, is required in case the skipper cannot easily determine whether an anticipated loading condition is acceptable from in view of stability requirements. Additionally the stability booklet should contain, among other, information regarding longitudinal strength. However, the most recent news is that as of April 1^st 2015, Chemical Tankers ADN type-C should comply with the new rules per to obtain a new or renewed certificates. This should give owners, ourselves and classification societies sufficient time to order, implement and approve the required software and documentation. 

SARC has already fully implemented all the new rules of ADN 2015 in LOCOPIAS. We can also provide you with booklets to get approval from any classification society. We provide the intact stability and damage stability for IWW Chemical Tankers.

With regard to ADN 2015, We refer you to the Lloyd’s Register report on this issue at the following link:

Guidance IWW Computer Loading Instruments for Software Suppliers version 4

On February 26, SARC presented recent and future developments on CASD, for the Rotterdam branch of the KNVTS society, in Vlaardingen. The presentation sheets are now available on prezi.com here and here.

The same presentation will also be held (in dutch) for the Amsterdam branch of the Society, see the KNVTS website.

LLoyd’s Register EMEA have prepared for an expected increase in work on inland waterway tankers. New ADN and rules and updated EBIS questionnaires now require inland waterway tankers to have stability documentation and loading instruments updated and approved. As the majority of these vessels have been designed with PIAS software, either by SARC or one of many designers using PIAS, SARC has provided LLoyd’s Register EMEA addtional PIAS licences and training of some 8 surveyors in preparation for the huge amount of work involved. By doing so, certification of stability documentation and loading instruments has become much more efficient, as remodelling of vessels is no longer required and LLoyd’s Register EMEA now have larger capacity to check the PIAS models, stability calculations and LOCOPIAS loading instruments submitted for aproval.

Conoship International, ship designers from Groningen, The Netherlands, is a long lasting user of PIAS; way back in the 1980s they belonged to one of the first users of PIAS, so in the past 25 years numerous ships have been designed and optimized with the PIAS tools. Furthermore, Conoship and SARC have collaborated in quite some research and development projects over the past years. However, also innovative companies need efficient off-the-shelf tools from time to time, so we are glad to announce that Conoship has significantly extended her set of PIAS modules.

Some of these extensions are add-ons to existing functionality, such as the optional GUI for the Loading module, while others will provide new possibilities.  The latter notably being the Fairway module for hull shape design and optimization, including export options to CFD. However, Conoship International would not be Conoship International if they would not have initiated a few Fairway enhancements which are required to match their specific design method and needs. Those new Fairway features will be implemented in the course of the months to come.

Mactech Marine Pvt. Ltd. is a Marine Consultancy dedicated to provide high quality services to their customers in the shipping industry. We are proud they have chosen for PIAS as their tool for stability analyses (Intact, damage, probabilistic). We have provided PIAS via our Indian agent Harsha Marine Designers.

LOCOPIAS has recently been delivered for the Panama pipe layer ‘Sapura Topazio’.

For more then 30 years, Technisch Bureau Gommers have outsourced stability calculations to SARC. Now Technisch Bureau Gommers have decided the time is ripe to purchase a basic PIAS package to do the bulk of these calculations themselves.

SARC will continue to provide support (and if necessary additional calculations) and look forward to a continued fruitful cooperation.

The German inland motor freighter ‘Girbaud’ has recently been equipped with LOCOPIAS.

Quoting from the new LOCOPIAS Certificate of Approval issued by Lloyd’s Register:

“This is to certify that the above Strength, Intact (Type 1) & Damage (Type 2 & 3) Stability calculation program has been examined in accordance with the relevant Classification Rules and the requirements of Statutory Regulations and is approved for the functions stated on the Supplement attached hereto.”

In plain English: LR confirm that LOCOPIAS is suitable as loading instrument for basically all vessel types that require a CSI (Computer Loading Instrument).

We of course knew that: LOCOPIAS has been approved by many classification societies (including LR) for individual vessels, but still, we are happy that LR have now confirmed such in thus type approval. Note that LOCOPIAS was previously only certified as type 1 and type 3 software, type 2 is now added to the certificate of approval.

Actually, our previous certificate made no explicit references to these type designations, we have assumed for some time that type 2 approval was already included. The impact of this certificate is mainly that it allows more Lloyd’s Register offices to issue certificates for individual versions of LOCOPIAS and that the approval procedures should be cheaper.

Following her sisters Polaris and Pollux, Procyon is now also equipped with LOCOPIAS including intact and (direct) damage stability calculations.

Following her sister Orabothnia, Katelina has now also been equipped with LOCOPIAS, including intact and damage stability plus longitudinal strength.

SARC have delivered a version of LOCOPIAS for the crane pontoon ‘Conquest MB1’. The setup includes ‘loss of load’ calculations.

SCYLLA wants to be able to evaluate intact and damage stability and run longitudinal strength calculations for their fleet of over 20 vessels.

Most of SCYLLA’s vessels were designed using PIAS, which made the choice for PIAS even easier.

LOCOPIAS has recently been installed on the following vessels:

• The inland chemical tanker mts ‘Ursula’.
• Seagoing gas tanker ‘Brisote’.
• Seagoing chemical tanker ‘Orabothnia’.

Recently, Royal Bodewes shipyard in Hoogezand, the Netherlands, started using our hull modelling software Fairway. The yard, founded in 1812, designs and builds a wide variety of ship types. Fairway shows to be a good fit to the yards’ focus on quality, optimization and innovation.

(Photo courtesy of AVE-SOLUTIONS)

LOCOPIAS has recently been added to the German inland tanker ‘Blandina’.

The Turkish military vessel ‘Buyakada’ has recently been equipped with LOCOPIAS.

Recently we have added a small but practical extention to the dragger in Fairway that you may find valuable to know about. We call it “Snap to point” and it can be used to copy the coordinates of any point in the model whenever you need to enter a position. It is used like this:

Bring up the context menu by clicking the right mouse button over the dragger. You will see a sub-menu called [Dragger], containing three options:

• [Snap to Knuckle Point] will light up all knuckle and end points in active solids, from which one may be selected to drag to.
• [Snap to Network Point] will do the same as above, but will include all points that define an intersection between curves.
• [Snap to Any Point] will offer all points in active solids, including internal ones.

When a point is highlit, a dash-dotted line is drawn from the current position to where the dragger wil travel. If the dragger is not free to translate in any direction, this might not coinside with that point. This makes it possible to align a point in say, a frame, with another point in another frame, in height and breadth. This line of travel is color-coded according to its direction, using the colors associated with the main planes and axes. When the line is not parallel to any of these, then it will be colored like a curve in an oblique plane.

The coordinates displayed in the right end of the status bar normally indicate the current position of the dragger. But when snapping to other points they indicate the position that the dragger would translate to, for the currently highlit point.

Our hull modelling programme Fairway has had the ability to generate shaded surface renderings for many years, but it did not allow manipulation of the geometry simultaneously. SARC B.V. has been investing effort into the renewal of Fairway for quite some time, and one of the goals has been the visualisation of the rendered surface within the modelling interface. That goal was recently accomplished, and we are proud to provide this new functionality to our Fairway customers free of charge.

As can be seen in the screen shot below (click to enlarge) we have added a “Shell” item for every solid in the tree view, which allows the surface renderings to be switched on and off for individual solids. Sub-items show material properties that can be changed by means of a double-click. New are also the visibility checkboxes behind the group items for polycurves (“Frames”, “Waterlines” etc.) to make it easy to switch off all polycurves so just the surface is shown. Further tuning of the visualisation can be done from the Display menu, which also allows to show or hide the shell surfaces of all solids at once.

Rendering of surfaces can be a computationally intensive task. Therefore, care is taken to refresh just the parts of the shell that are affected by a particular modelling action. This is done in the background each time an action is applied, so the programme remains fully responsive and rendering needs not impede your progress; except that it is fascinating to look at these nice pictures… All cores of modern processors are involved in the task, so renderings are updated as quickly as possible.

On a side note we can also report that when surfaces are being exported to IGES format we now use the same interface to offer a visual quality check of the resulting surface patches. All in all we think these are great improvements and we wish our users happy modelling. Enjoy!

Dutch pipe burying vessel ‘Joseph Plateau’ has been equipped with LOCOPIAS.

We’ve recently supplied LOCOPIAS for the Norwegian offshore suppliy ship ‘World Peridot’.

We welcome the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) as a new client. They have selected PIAS and Fairway for their department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.

The software was delivered via Harsha Marine Designers, our agent in India.

The oil tanker ‘King Fisher’ has recently been equipped with LOCOPIAS.

An interface between LOCOPIAS and BERG Maritiem Meetsystemen is now available.

For a recent delivery on the inland waterway tanker “Antverpia” we included this functionality. The interface consists of reading volumes and densities for actual temperature for all cargo tanks from the tank measurement system.

On June 14, SARC installed LOCOPIAS loading computer software on-board of mv ‘UAL TEXAS’.

LOCOPIAS has recently been delivered for vessel ‘Industrial More’.

Herbert Koelman has been announced as the winner of the GL COMPIT Award 2013. The Dutch computer aided design expert was honoured for his paper’s contribution to the promotion of innovative approaches in ship design, at the COMPIT Conference which took place from 15 to 17 April in Cortona, Italy.

The jury singled out Dr Koelman, SARC, from a short list of several highly qualified candidates, because his paper outlines a roadmap for advanced ship design approaches over the next decade. His paper: “Midterm Outlook on Computer Aided Ship Design” received the highest praise for both its content and form. The jury noted that his highly readable and unpretentious paper offered a number of avenues for exploration for the industry.

Of particular note, they said was his advocation of 3D laser printing as a hands-on manifestation of 3D design approaches. His identification of underused opportunities to create numerical design series and rapid design formulas based on CFD and machine learning approaches. And above all the challenge that the paper puts to the community to avoid complacency and mental standstill and strive for innovation in methods rather than user-interface wizardry.

Paper – Award

Read the full article at World Martime News