Naval Architecture

▌ Naval Architecture

Naval Architecture is a branch of engineering that deals with design, construction, operation, repair, maintenance and certification of marine vehicles including surface ships, submarines and deep submersibles. With the knowledge so gained, naval architects can also carry out hydrodynamic and motion-response analysis of floating and compliant platforms for efficient design and safe operation. A good knowledge of the ocean environment and behavior of bodies in waves and currents is essential for the field and therefore subjects related to marine hydrodynamics constitute a significant part of the curriculum.  Efficient and safe design of ocean systems hinges on good knowledge of structural mechanics and materials and hence courses in marine materials and structural analysis constitute another major part of the curriculum.  As visual perception of complex ship geometry is crucial for optimizing general arrangement of ship components and cargo as well as for ship’s hydrodynamic and structural designs, courses in ship drawing and calculations are fundamental to the discipline. Courses, as electives, in dynamic systems and control; programming in machine language; micro-controller design; neural networks and machine learning; and marine instrumentation are also gaining currency in the present Naval Architecture curriculum as several key functions of future marine vehicles, including maneuvering and sea keeping, are envisaged to be autonomous.

Ocean engineering area widely covers studies on offshore structures, port and harbor,  coastal structures, coastal erosion and protection, ocean energy, dredging and ocean mining, subsea pipelines and cables, underwater acoustics. For sufficient breadth, important elements of Ocean Engineering are also included, and the undergraduate program in the Department of Ocean Engineering at IIT Madras leads to the Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering.