Please note - Registration will close on Tuesday, April 20, 2021. A link to join the webinar will be emailed to you on Wednesday, April 21, 2021.
Students from 4 of the area universities will present their projects:
Stevens Institute
Webb Institute
United States Maritime Academy
SUNY Maritime College
Design and Testing of Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) End Effector
MIDN Kolbe Kirlin, United States Merchant Marine Academy
Metal based additive manufacturing has been rapidly emerging within the past decade as a useful, but costly way to produce 3D metal components with intricate and complex designs. These obscure designs would be extremely expensive and or not be otherwise achieved through the process of subtractive manufacturing. The metal printing process known as Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) is an effective method of 3D printing that uses common MIG welding technology to deposit metal onto a print platform in a layer-by-layer approach to create three dimensional objects. The purpose of this study is to explore the design and construction of a universal 3D printed (Fused Deposition Modeling) mount to attach welding equipment to an accessible robotic arm. The creation of a welding gun mount will eliminate the need for exorbitant additive welding machinery and make WAAM more accessible at a lower cost. This report will cover the design and experimentation process of creating a welding gun mount to accommodate various brands of welding guns and determine the best method of actuation for the welding gun trigger. The design of the welding gun mount will take into account the length, width, height, and weight of various welding guns. The best method of actuation will be based off of the size and weight of the device required to actuate the trigger of the mounted welding gun. During testing, WAAM robot’s ability to weld will be determined by conducting multiple tack and line welds on a flat metal plate.
Stevens Autonomous Surface Surveyor (SASS)
Joshua Graham and Andrew Mueller, Stevens Institute of Technology
Current methods for coastal and marine surveying are inefficient and time consuming. At a time when coastline erosion, extreme weather events, habitat loss, and property damage are on a rise there is an ever growing need to maintain and upkeep the border between land and sea. This project is intended to promote electric propulsion and to create a versatile platform customizable to perform marine tasks and surveys. Originally designed to compete in the ASNE Promoting Electric Propulsion (PEP) Competition, the Stevens Autonomous Surface Surveyor (SASS) evolved to fit this niche in the marine engineering community. Although still fully electric and capable of competing, the SASS was optimized for a lower speed to increase endurance in professional applications. Two Hydromea RimDrive50 thrusters were implemented due to their compact space saving design, allowing for a more flexible general arrangement, as well as the hub-less propellers reducing the chances for entanglement from plants and debris. The current GPS based autonomous navigation system is capable of controlling the force vectoring of the thrusters to maneuver. Further additions to the platform in the future would be cooperation between multiple SASS to increase coverable area or operable time, as well as obstacle avoidance technology to further improve the autonomous navigation capabilities.
NYCEDC Cargo Ferry
Timothy O’Hara and Tyler Armstrong, Stevens Institute of Technology
The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote economic growth in New York City. They own a variety of piers and waterfront properties throughout NYC and have been approached by major delivery service companies who are seeking to improve efficiency in the region. In 2018, NYCEDC developed the North Atlantic Marine Highway Alliance, which aims to “foster the use of barge and ferry services to offset the use of trucks and supplement rail cargo to and from the Port of New York and New Jersey”. With known interest from delivery service companies and a desire to strengthen the marine highway initiative, NYCEDC reached out to engage with Naval Engineering students for concept design evaluation of a short sea cargo ferry. The team has developed a catamaran ferry that meets the given requirements and will improve the overall efficiency of shipping in the area. The design features a diesel-electric propulsion system that seeks to improve carbon dioxide emissions as well as lower cost of shipping goods locally. The implementation of this cargo ferry service into the economic landscape has the potential to completely alter the way goods are shipped in and out of NYC.
Automatic Error Propagation through Eigenvalue and Eigenvector Calculations
Lawrence Abu-Hammour, SUNY Maritime College
Eigenvalues and eigenvectors for a given system or a given matrix give important information and properties about a given system especially in fields like control systems, buckling analysis, machine learning, and quantitative finance. In many cases, the calculations to solve for these eigenvalues and eigenvectors are still being understood to this day and can be very involved depending on the size of the system or the size of the matrix. As a result, it is likely crucial to be able to use a computational system to determine the values of an eigenvalue or eigenvector in order to begin to understand how a system may behave regarding its eigenvalues and eigenvectors. With all computational systems, there is likely to be some error with numerical calculations whether it be round-off or truncation error. Being able to quantify and control this error is especially important for accuracy and robustness purposes. The goal of this project is to harness the power of the various algorithms to calculate the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a given matrix with implementation of basic error arithmetic. The results of this project are that the error arithmetic was successfully implemented in addition to robust calculations of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of any size square matrix, but performance time may differ between compiled functions and custom functions coded in the MATLAB programming language
USCG Lilac Renovation: Developing a Plan to Carry Passengers on a Historic Lighthouse Tender
Ian Cosic & Cross Weeks, Webb Institute
The USCGC Lilac is a 1933 lighthouse tender currently being operated as a museum. This thesis aims to assess the feasibility of modifying the Lilac to meet intact and damage stability regulations for passenger vessels. It also aims to propose specific actions that can be taken to address any current shortcomings which prevent her from satisfying United States Coast Guard regulations for passenger vessels. An assessment of the vessel’s current lightship particulars, subdivision, and arrangement were carried out, allowing for a subsequent analysis of her stability characteristics and possible loading conditions
Metaheuristic Algorithms in Concept Design: Optimization of Marine Electrical Systems
Students: Benjamin Hunt & Alexander Koziol, Webb Institute
Ship designers have long used experience and standards to guide their solutions to problems. Automation and modern optimization software, despite their limited exposure in the maritime industry, could significantly reduce this effort, as well as help designers make trade-offs between new technologies. Electrical system design is often repetitive and relies heavily on conventions and standards. This can lead to inefficient designs that rely too heavily on past practices. We are developing software that will transform an Electrical Plant Load Analysis table into a fully-defined One-Line Diagram with automatically generated distribution components selected according to best practices and the IEEE 45 rules. From this One-Line Diagram, we are developing algorithms to optimize system layout and power production techniques for fuel use and emissions with respect to various operating conditions of the vessel. This design tool will prove valuable for the Concept Phase of ship design, allowing engineers to draft and evaluate propulsion and electrical plant layouts quickly and easily.