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STEVE NICHOLS MARINE DESIGNS

NAVAL ARCHITECTURE AND CONSULTING

The Design Spiral was introduced by Professor J.K. Evans in an article titled "Basic Design Concepts" in the ASNE Journal Nov 1959

Although there are a multitude of considerations to be made during a design there are several points or tasks that drive it and for which changes will generally have significant implications for the other major tasks. These tasks are termed Design Drivers and are those that surround the Design Spiral. The principle of the Design Spiral is to consider each item in turn as the design proceeds. This will certainly apply for large, complex vessels but in smaller vessels, some stages can be skipped on each pass. As each task is considered and modifications are made it is likely that some or all aspects of previously visited tasks will need to change. For example; a general arrangement is prepared and we move on to Structure. Here we discover that the vessel needs deeper side frames in the forward end and so the arrangement will need to be modified on the next pass. The process, if followed carefully, ensures that we don’t overlook critical aspects of the design as we are working on it. If we were to do that we would never complete a successful one.

The Design Spiral