Design aspects of inland navigation catamarans

Abstract

The paper aims to identify the main aspects in design of catamarans for inland navigation, but not limited to, and to present some approaches related to this aspects. The catamarans have some consistent advantages against conventional monohull: larger deck area, better transverse stability and in general improved behaviour in waves. As consequence the catamarans have gained ground in a wide range of applications: inland/maritime passenger ships, passenger or car/passenger ferries, inland cargo ships and even Navy ships. The main design aspects discussed in this material are: hydrodynamic efficiency, hull and deck structure design, passenger/cargo space arrangement, machinery and installations aspects, intact and damage stability aspects. The methods presented here, related with the above aspects, are based on international ship design and construction rules, results of structure design investigations and towing tank experiments developed in other paperwork. Based on the author’s experience in designing inland passenger catamarans, this paper gathers valuable information which is meant to create an overview on the catamaran design and the compromises needed to fulfil different designing criteria, Class requirements and other specific restrictions.