Atlantic Center For The Innovative Design And Control Of Small Ships: Surface Effect Ship (Ses) Test Program

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) established the National Naval Responsibility (NNR) for Naval Engineering program in order to maintain and strengthen the United States expertise in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering disciplines. The primary mission of the NNR program is to ensure the presence of a strong Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering discipline in the United States for future generations of innovative ship design. The Atlantic Center for the Innovative Design and Control of Small Ships (ACCeSS) is a consortium of researchers from academia and industry that was established in order to support this ONR initiative. The academic members of ACCeSS include faculty and students from within the departments of Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, Ocean Engineering and Systems Engineering of the U.S. Naval Academy, Stevens Institute of Technology, Webb Institute and University College of London. In endeavoring to support the ONR NNR, the ACCeSS team has incorporated several students – both undergraduate and graduate – within all of its technical activities. This paper provides an overview of the efforts and projects undertaken by the ACCeSS members, and then discusses in some depth one of the technical projects performed by an undergraduate student at the U.S. Naval Academy with support from a faculty member as well as an engineer from a consulting company. The project is a physical hydrodynamic model test program for surface effect ship design and analysis. The project has served to engage students, faculty and industry professionals within and outside of the U.S. Naval Academy in an exciting, technically challenging, multidisciplinary effort that has application to the military and commercial industry.