 This is a quite compact but very informative and useful publication providing clear explanations of the shear forces acting on the ship hull and the bending moments resulting from that. The subject definitions actually form the basis of the ship mechanics and lay in the foundation of any strength related calculations. That is why it is critically important for the ship designers and shipbuilders to have good and thorough understanding of them.
Written by the professional captain, the document will be of great use for the people who are not involved in ship design, but rather for those in need of having general understanding of the topic. As we know, the shear force is the one tending to shear, or break, a beam perpendicular to the major axis of that beam. For the purpose of the relevant calculations, the hull of the vessel is normally considered a beam.
The bending moment, in turn, is a sum of all moments that try to alter the beam’s shape. When the vessel is afloat, resting on the surface of the water, the longitudinal deflections will be experienced by the hull; they are caused by the uneven weight and buoyance distribution along the hull length. The subject stresses are always there regardless of the ship loading, and cannot be avoided.
 Over the past decades, the members of the Ship Structure Committee have collected and analyzed extensive service cases of the unsatisfactory vessel designs concerning their structural part. The material contained in the document is intended to help the ship designers, including both naval and commercial ships, to specify the cost effective and technically sound details. The details provided in the pages of the present guide combine the service experience with the costs of fabrication.
There are also many data tables, diagrams, pictures and other supplementary materials intended to help the ship designers when selecting the appropriate details of the structure. First of all, the authors provide a brief overview of the sample failures of the ship structures, structural tolerances and material fatigue, as well as general philosophy of the ship design.
The performance of the details is covered in the separate chapter, followed with the information on the estimated man-hours needed for the fabrication. Several practical recommendations conclude the main part of the guide. There are also three appendices with the additional information making the guide even more useful.
 The world famous Titanic was considered by so many people, including the professional ship designers, naval architects, and shipbuilders, to be an absolutely unsinkable vessel. Featuring the efficient and redundant shipboard safety systems based on the very latest technological achievements of that time, the vessel was not even considered to possess a full complement of the lifesaving appliances.
As we know, the sad truth is that her maiden voyage resulted in a collision with the iceberg leading to the loss of thousands of people including passengers and crew members. This catastrophe is deservedly treated as one of the most tragic maritime disasters in the history. The author of this book wanted to analyze the entire project of building this ship, from the design stage and up to the launching, to reveal and show the compromises that were made at the beginning of the project, eventually resulting in the flaws.
One of the features of this publication is that it will be equally interesting to the ship designers and the IT people since the author made every effort to show how the lessons obtained from this catastrophe could be applied to the various IT projects, as it happens that the designers claim and think they have launched a truly perfect solution…
 The content of the publication is focusing on the most important areas of the preliminary ship structural design, presenting the relevant information in clear and easily understandable manner. The authors have covered the critical aspects of the design together with the general requirements as well as standard established formats.
In the meantime it shall be understood that the dimensions of the vessel and sizes of all structural members involved are directly affecting the decisions made during the design process. One of the advantages of the approach applied by the authors of the volume is that it may be used with different ship types.
In addition to that, subject approach will allow ship designers to get to the optimum structures in accordance with their practical measures of merit. There are three structural design levels and the present publication focuses on the second level which is considered a central one.
The concept design is linked to the geometrical characteristics of the structure while the preliminary design is applied to establish the structural dimensions, or so-called scantlings of the essential structural members. Finally, the detail design deals with the local matters including openings, welding joints, local reinforcements etc.
 The types, sizes, functions and arrangement of the modern merchant fleet vessels vary considerably. Among these vessels there are passenger vessels, cargo vessels and vessels of specialized types suitable for the particular assignments. This is how the first chapter of this book starts – here the reader will get the basic information about the types of ships and terminology used.
Then, the author proceeds to the explanation of the stresses normally encountered in the different ship structures as well as the materials used for ship construction and welding aspects. Each part of the ship’s hull has been addressed in detail, from the bottom and up to the main deck and superstructure. There is a separate chapter in this volume solely devoted to the freeboard and tonnage, including freeboard assignment, the major provisions of the Tonnage convention and all relevant rules and regulations that shall be taken into consideration when developing the design of any ship.
The author has also dealt with the shipboard lifesaving appliances and arrangements, structural fire protection, ship classification, hull vibration, ship dynamics, insulation of the ships, prevention of corrosion to the hull including cathodic protection, painting, anti-fouling, drydocking activities and many other areas.
 The original intention of the author of this publication was to provide all interested readers, including boat designers and boat builders in the first turn, with all necessary knowledge which they will use when selecting appropriate propellers for the boats. The content of the volume will be equally applicable to various types of boats from trawlers to high-speed powerboats. It shall be noted that if someone is interested in some particular application or vessel type, it is not required to go through the whole book.
We would rather recommend them to have a glance at the main aspects and then concentrate on the particular section with the type-specific information they need. The first two chapters of the book are covering the matters related to the boat power and speed, while the third chapter is describing the essential parts of the boat propeller together with the associated dimensions.
The following two chapters define and discuss the technical differences in propeller types and shapes of the propeller blades, plus the so-called “slip method” of selecting the propeller. The remaining chapters are dealing with the mathematical methods of selection, various installation methods, and special consideration that would be necessary for tug boats, outboard powered vessels and others.
 The present book is devoted to the ships featuring hybrid hull construction. The publication was written to provide shipbuilders, ship designers and other categories of people engaged in the industry, with the latest technological developments in the field of constructing hulls from the hybrid materials.
The content of the book will tell readers about the most important differences in processing of construction materials and also about different structural behaviors - this information should be taken into consideration in order to maximize the performance of the ship.
The author has addressed the relevant engineering requirements that are normally specific to the hybrid structures fundamental to the optimization of the ship design. The content of the book is fully covering the basic aspects of methodology and techniques that are unavailable today fro any other sources; it provides the technical knowledge required to support the ship hull design and facilitate the reliability of manufacturing.
The MATLAB codes have also been dealt with to enable the engineers apply the methods that have been covered in the book easier and according to their engineering tasks. Particular focus has been made on heavy-duty applications including innovative ship design engineering solutions.
 This training course was developed by Captain S. A. Hosseini and released by the I.R.I.S.L. Training Institute specifically to assist ship chief mates willing to have better understanding of the ship construction. Such understanding will definitely contribute to the safety of the voyage since knowing the construction of the vessel will help make better arrangements related to its use and also choose appropriate course of actions during various situations.
The material of this training volume is arranged in seven major sections starting from the materials commonly used for constructing ship hulls. The next two sections are dealing with the ship bulkheads including their construction and watertightness aspects, bulkhead testing etc., and welding covering different types of welding, testing the weld seams, preparation for welding, advantages of welding etc.
The weather- and watertight doors are discussed in the other section together with their construction, operation and maintenance. The rest of the book is dealing with the corrosion of the ship hull and methods of preventing corrosion, classification, survey and drydocking of the vessels, and finally the requirements of the SOLAS convention that shall be taken in consideration and complied with at all times.
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