Naval Engineers Journal最新文献

This paper will examine the Global Fleet Station (GFS) concept, first proposed in the Naval Operations Concept 2006 and implemented since then through a variety of US Navy (USN) and US Coast Guard (USCG) humanitarian assistance and foreign military training cruises. First, we will explore GFS missions, and the capability and materiel requirements that are derived from them. Next, relying on lessons learned from recent USN and USCG GFS and GFS-type cruises, and preliminary analysis of 20 US and foreign vessels potentially suitable for GFS missions, this paper will argue that to effectively implement GFS in a persistent, distributed, and affordable manner, greater attention must be given to ships specially built or modified for the mission, complemented by dual-use legacy ships used as necessary in augmentation roles. It is important to recognize that emerging GFS requirements differ greatly from requirements for ships built for major combat operations, but that the resulting cost savings actually make this a cost-effective and operationally effective trade-off for the USN.

An earlier nonparametric statistical study of GE F414 engine removals from operational F/A-18 aircraft in US Navy service provided insights into the lifetime patterns of engine removals for various causes. Inspection of the estimated hazard function for engine removals for foreign object damage (FOD) suggested that a parametric analysis using Erlang distributions might be fruitful, bolstered by a hypothesized relevance to the maintenance procedures governing engine removals for this cause, and their outcomes. The objective was both a better model to forecast engine removals and to provide insight into the number of FOD incidents it took to drive an engine removal. Gamma and Erlang distributions did better fit the removals data and provide a tool for predicting engine removals, aircraft availability impact, and the resultant maintenance workload. A parametric model using a cascade of Erlang functions was developed to simulate the combined FOD/line maintenance process, which provides insight into the outcomes expected under reasonable simplifying assumptions. This model predicts that the key research issue, the probability that a typical FOD event prompts a removal, cannot be estimated from engine removals data alone. Field data must be collected to gain understanding of the underlying frequency of FOD and the utility of the present inspection criteria.

Until recently, the Navy's approach to designing, engineering, and acquiring complex weapon systems did not routinely or completely include the human “warrior” as an integral part of the system. Rather, the Navy viewed systems as combinations of hardware and software. The results were often less-than-optimal capability and high life-cycle cost—and, sometimes, even mission failure. Given the high rate of technological change and the need to rein in cost in the face of increasingly constrained budgets, the Navy and the other services have increasingly embraced the need to consider human-performance capabilities and limitations up front and on an equal footing with hardware and software—as integral elements in both new-acquisition and technology-refresh programs. The US Submarine Force has championed human systems integration (HSI). HSI is a specialized engineering discipline that takes human limitations and capabilities fully into account to influence system design and engineering early in the research, development, and acquisition process, thereby helping to ensure the highest overall performance at the lowest total ownership cost. Implementation of HSI has involved new partnerships with unlikely partners such as the audio equipment company Bose, game-makers, the visual-reality industry, physiologists, and psychologists. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the Virginia (SSN-774)-Class Nuclear Attack Submarine Program.

In 1989, Ingalls Shipbuilding contracted to design and construct three Sa'ar V Class corvettes for the Government of Israel. The available funding was considerably less than would have been needed to design and build equivalent ships for the US Navy. As a result, the Israeli Navy (IN) and Ingalls Shipbuilding, working closely together, implemented significant innovative systems engineering and design practices and the ships were delivered within the budget. Some of the key innovative design and engineering methods used during that program are described in this paper.