Teaching Ship Structures with MAESTRO

Ship structural analysis software, MAESTRO, can be used as a tool in teaching ship structures in both undergraduate and graduate Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering programs. The experience in incorporating MAESTRO into the undergraduate at the U. S. Coast Guard Academy and graduate program at MIT is described. In both programs, the objective is to give students a working knowledge of ship structures without the series of courses and experience needed to become structural analysis experts. Most students of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering do not specialize in the area of structural analysis nor develop expertize in detailed computerized structural analysis. However, all practicing naval architects and marine engineers need a fundamental working knowledge of ship structures. Traditionally ship structures has been taught by separating the loads into parts and evaluating the responses to the parts as separate problems. This has been adequate to give a basic understanding of ship structures, but, as ship structural design and analysis has moved beyond mere satisfaction of Class Society rules, at least exposure to a more holistic analysis is increasingly important. The specialized ship structural analysis software MAESTRO bridges the gap between simple manual calculations and the major investment in knowledge and time needed to create a valid detailed computerized ship structural model. MAESTRO uses a panel method (modified finite element) tailored specifically for ship structures which requires far less knowledge and time to produce a valid ship structural analysis model. Due to the ease of learning the software and creating a valid ship structural model, it is possible to incorporate its use into general naval architecture courses without the requirement to become an expert in structural finite element analysis. The use of MAESTRO in the graduate program affords the students greater insight into ship structural response to load effects that are not always accurately analyzed by current manual methods (simple prismatic beam analysis). In the undergraduate program, the students use MAESTRO to develop a structural model as part of their senior ship design project. There has been difficulty in the undergraduate program in the development of a whole ship model, but the software allows the mid-portion of the ship structure to be easily created. In both the graduate and undergraduate programs the emphasis is on learning ship structures, not becoming expert in specific software. The authors feel MAESTRO is being used successfully in both the graduate and undergraduate programs to teach ship structures and give students experience in computer structural analysis.