Ship Robust Design Optimization Based on Polynomial Chaos Expansions

Considerable parameter perturbations occur owing to the influence of uncertain factors in actual ship transportation, resulting in a substantial decline in ship performance. These parameters should not be regarded as certain values but uncertain variables. Ship robust design optimization (RDO) is a method in which various uncertainties are fully considered in the early stages of ship design to ensure that the optimal case adapts to the perturbation of the uncertain parameters. In this study, instead of the commonly used Monte Carlo method, polynomial chaos expansions (PCEs) are adopted to quantify the uncertainty, and an improved probabilistic collocation method (PCM) based on the linear independence principle is proposed to select sample points for calculating polynomial coefficients of PCE, which not only reduces the number of collocation points compared with the traditional statistical sampling method but also avoids the problem that arises with the traditional PCM, which cannot maintain high calculation accuracy even with considerable collocation points. Finally, to ensure ship robustness, in comparison with deterministic optimization design, the proposed RDO framework is applied to minimum Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) KRISO Container Ship hull form design.