Dear SNAME Canadian Pacific Section members and friends,
We invite you to join us for a virtual technical webinar this Thursday on “A Case Study for Application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Developing Fire Zone Arrangement”.
Sign-up link below:
A Case Study of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Developing Fire Zone Arrangement - VIRTUAL
🚢 A Case Study for Application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Developing Fire Zone Arrangement – VIRTUAL EVENT
🗓️ When: Thursday, March 26, 2026 from 09:00 AM to 10:00 AM (PT)
📍 Location: ONLINE
🌐 Hosted by: SNAME Canadian Pacific Section
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
Artificial Intelligence is expected to play an increasingly important role in the future of ship design by assisting engineers in analyzing large datasets and automating complex design tasks. This presentation demonstrates the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning to automatically classify ship compartments according to SOLAS fire risk categories. Using compartment names and functional descriptions extracted from General Arrangement data, textual information is converted into semantic embeddings and used to train classification models that predict the appropriate fire category for each space. The approach leverages pre-trained word embeddings and supervised learning algorithms to interpret engineering language and identify patterns in compartment descriptions. Results from case studies using only two vessel designs show that the model can achieve over 80% classification accuracy despite limited training data and can support faster development of fire zone arrangements.
SPEAKER/PRESENTER
Reza Saadatmand, P. Eng
Reza is an Outfitting Engineer at Vancouver Shipyards supporting the Polar Ice-Breaker program as Platform Integration Lead – Outfitting. He has over 20 years of engineering experience across shipbuilding, marine infrastructure, and oil and gas projects. Reza holds a Master of Engineering Leadership in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the University of British Columbia, a BTech in Technology Management from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, and a BSc. in Chemical Engineering from Isfahan University of Technology. He is a Professional Engineer registered with Engineers and Geoscientists BC (EGBC) and a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME). His work includes exploring applications of data analytics and machine learning in ship design.
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Vincent Liu
Seaspan Vancouver Shipyards
Canada
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