Transportation : Ships & Shipbuilding

The firm of Cammell Laird originated in a boiler works in 1824 before growing and diversifying to become one of a small number of companies worldwide which could build, armour and arm the largest warships from the operations of a single company group. After World War I, it was reconstructed as a naval and mercantile shipbuilder with important financial interests in steel and rolling stock manufacture. Booming activity in World War II and continuing prosperity until the late 1950s was followed by increasing competition and deepening problems. By the 1980s the firm’s remaining steel interests had failed; in 1993 the once great Birkenhead shipyard closed. How and why did the businesses grow, then experience such problems and eventually collapse? This book tries to find answers. more...

Price: $70.00

Target Detection by Marine Radar concentrates solely on civil marine operations and explains how civil surveillance radars detect their targets. There are numerous diagrams and worked examples to help the reader understand the principles underlying radar operation and to quantify the importance of factors such as technical features of specific equipment, the weather, the ability of the operator. more...

Price: $130.00

This definitive text describes the theory and design both of Air Cushion Vehicles (ACV) and Surface Effect Ships (SES). It begins by introducing hovercraft types and their development and application throughout the world in the last three decades, before going on to discuss the theoretical aspects of ACV and SES craft covering their hovering performance, dynamic trim over calm water, resistance, stability, manoeuvrability, skirt configuration and analysis of forces acting on the skirts, ACV and SES seakeeping, and the methodology of scaling aerodynamic and hydrodynamic forces acting on the ACV/SES from model test data. The latter chapters describe a design methodology, including design criteria and standard methods for estimating craft performance, lift system design, skirt design, hull structure, propulsion systems and power unit selection. Much technical information, data, and references to further work on hovercraft and SES design is provided. The book will be a useful reference to engineers, technicians, teachers, students (both undergraduate and postgraduate), operators etc. who are involved in ACV/SES research, design, construction and operation. more...

Price: $255.00

The U.S. Navy wants to provide its shipbuilders with appropriate incentive to produce militarily effective vessels at minimum cost to the Navy. It can induce a shipbuilder to agree to any contractual arrangement by offering the shipbuilder a high enough price. But it is likely to be preferable, at least ex ante, for the Navy to dissipate risk external to its shipbuilder to pay less for the systems the Navy needs. The Navy uses external labor- and material-cost indexes to attempt to correct for significant cost risks outside its shipbuilders? control. Shipbuilder profits are greater when actual cost growth is less than the indexes? cost growth and conversely. A longtime material-cost index in Navy shipbuilding is the steel-vessel index. However, this index does not accurately cover the materials used in building a modern ship. It has also been more volatile than have material-cost indexes with lower weight on iron and steel. A risk-averse shipbuilder will require a premium to bear this cost structure?mismatch-driven risk. The authors urge the Navy to develop a modern-vessel index that more appropriately represents the materials used today. The more accurately a material-cost index captures a shipbuilder?s external material cost risk, the less the Navy should have to pay its shipbuilders. more...

Price: $9.95