“The Monoform Ship Concept: Design Principles and Preliminary Performance Characteristics”
Author: Rik van Hemmen
Published: May 1982
Presented at the Chesapeake Section Meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, Laurel, MD
This short paper describes a ship concept that was developed by Dr. Adorjan Szeless, Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, Submarine Design and Ocean Engineering Professor at Virginia Tech. It is a very slick variation on the SWATH concept and today, with much less expensive active control systems, would have more promise than it had in the very early 80’s.
Rik van Hemmen, as a student at Virginia Tech, performed some model testing on this concept. He was asked to present his findings at a SNAME Chesapeake Section meeting and won the SNAME undergraduate paper award. Years later Rik came across a very similar Soviet concept that was being developed at the same time. Who came first? We may never know.
What is more certain is that this paper was probably the first student paper that was typed and printed on a word processor.
To download the full paper click this link: The_Monoform_Ship_Concept_Design_Principles_and_Preliminary_Performance_Characteristics