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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Suggested Citation:"2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets." Transportation Research Board. 2011. Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13191.
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Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

2 Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets Scholars have long considered science and technology to be society’s window on the future. This theme is evident to the Navy as it depends on the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to fulfill its mission by providing the science, technology, and research necessary to support future naval fleets. To carry out its mission effectively, ONR must not only keep cur- rent on scientific advancements, technologies, and innovations but also understand the Navy’s future mission needs, threats, and strategies to meet those threats. The committee has reviewed these research oppor- tunities and needs and has identified factors influencing the manage- ment and planning process for ONR’s National Naval Responsibility for Naval Engineering (NNR-NE) initiative. ONR uses information about research opportunities and needs for two purposes. The first is to aid in the portfolio management process by communicating needs and expected outcomes to researchers and by balancing user requirements with research opportunities. The second is to aid in planning an effective portfolio with research objectives that are within ONR’s naval engineering core disciplines and that are based on future threats and technology trends. The committee commissioned papers by experts on topics relevant to research needs and opportunities (see Appendix B). In addition, the com- mittee held workshops that included experts in the Navy ship design and construction community as well as prominent researchers in naval engi- neering who are active in ONR programs (see Appendix A). The commis- sioned papers and workshop topics included analyses of game-changing technologies in the past with lessons that may be learned from them, reviews of future technologies to enable naval missions to meet potential 35

36 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century threats, and investigations of challenges in applying new technologies to warship design and construction. This chapter addresses both research needs and opportunities. The first section below describes naval engineering research needs dictated by pos- sible future operating environments, missions, and resource constraints. Research opportunities are discussed in the second section, which iden- tifies promising technologies and trends in innovation within the tradi- tional disciplines related to naval engineering as well as other fields of scientific investigation that offer insights and discovery potential. The research opportunities identified are intended as illustrations. The list of opportunities is not systematic or comprehensive and reflects the areas of expertise of the committee and workshop participants. It does not cover all the technical areas within the NNR-NE. ONR could produce a more valuable list of opportunities by regularly and systematically exploiting the same sources that the committee relied on, that is, external consulta- tion with practicing naval engineers, the operating Navy, researchers, and other technical experts. Later chapters will present the committee’s eval- uations of how well ONR’s NNR-NE initiative makes use of such infor- mation to manage its research agenda and plan its portfolio. RESEARCH NEEDS The paper commissioned by the committee on potential technology impli- cations of the Navy’s future (O’Rourke 2010) identified three drivers that will probably have significant influence on the Navy’s requirements for advanced platform technology: the future operating environments the Navy may face, the types of operations and missions it may expect to be called on to perform, and the prospects for availability of resources. Research needs dictated by each of these drivers are identified in the fol- lowing three subsections. Navy’s Future Operating Environment The implications of the future operating environment relate to a num- ber of assumptions about future adversaries and the kinds of threats they may pose. Research may be required to counter or defend against new

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 37 weapons that adversaries may use. Another issue may arise from limited or uncertain access to overseas land bases, which could, in turn, result in needs for either sea bases or ships with longer range, greater capacities, and smaller crews. The operating environment in Arctic regions as sea ice diminishes poses challenges for naval ships and crews. Finally, the need for energy conservation or use of alternative energy could require the Navy to exploit new technologies such as hybrid drive, fuel cells, and biofuels. Threats from new weapons systems deployed by potential adversaries have been of recent concern to U.S. defense planners. Among those under consideration are antiship ballistic missiles or cruise missiles that have not been previously evaluated. These and other weapons could require Navy ships to support more capable radar and other surveillance technolo- gies as well as to operate further outside the range of new weapons. In addi- tion, certain future weapons threats may encourage the Navy to develop new technologies to reduce ship signatures. Another type of threat could involve new tactics, an example of which could be cyberwarfare. This threat could influence research needs for shipboard systems to increase resiliency or redundancy of computer networks. Finally, the threat of terrorist attacks could lead to ship technology needs concerning sensors and defenses against small boats, swimmers, unmanned submarines, and so forth. Planners also have recently noted problems with regard to continued access to and vulnerability of certain U.S. overseas land bases that have traditionally been used by the military to support foreign deployments. This will likely result in more emphasis on overseas support by naval ships and other platforms, which will increase the need for cost-effective solutions. The diminishment of Arctic sea ice is leading to increased human activities in the Arctic and is opening up a new operating area for Navy and Coast Guard surface ships. Technology implications, particularly for surface ships, of increased Navy operations in the Arctic include ice- strengthened hulls and underwater appendages, ice-resistant topsides, cold-temperature equipment, and so forth. These factors are a few of many potential challenges facing the Navy in its future operating environment that could affect how ONR manages and plans its NNR-NE initiative.

38 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century Future Naval Operations The second driver will be the character of the operations necessary to carry out the missions that the Navy will be called on to perform. Such operations include the traditional missions of sea control and power pro- jection. Ballistic missile defense, counterterrorism and irregular warfare, antipiracy, and humanitarian assistance and disaster response are among the operations likely to have increased importance. These operational requirements will generate research needs to develop systems with unique functions for electronic warfare, to support the deployment of special autonomous vehicles, to support the use of special operational forces, to transfer relief supplies to shore, to repair damaged infrastructure, or to provide emergency medical and humanitarian support on a large scale in remote regions. Additional needs may be generated by other special operations such as increased support systems for special operations forces; Sea, Air, and Land Teams; and the launch and support of autonomous unmanned vehicles (submersibles, surface vessels, and aircraft). Antipiracy requirements may involve unique new vehicles and surveillance systems. The current Navy program to build a series of littoral combat ships (LCS) are a direct result of these and related operational needs for smaller, more versatile plat- forms to operate in inshore and coastal waters and support special war- fare operations. Many of the unique features that are incorporated on the LCS are a result of earlier research work in hydrodynamics, hull design, propulsors, materials, and structures. Partnerships with other nations that can involve support of new naval capabilities in those nations and education and training missions appear to be growing in importance. The development of more effective train- ing systems could create special research needs, as could the develop- ment of vessels and training modules for applications in a variety of foreign environments. Finally, the Navy is being called on to support disaster response and humanitarian assistance efforts at an increasing rate, and its capabilities are sometimes uniquely suited to this mission. The adaptability of war- ships to these changing missions and special environments could lead to research requirements as well.

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 39 Resource Prospects The third driver with implications for ONR’s research portfolio will be the Navy’s resource prospects and the influence of resources on all pro- grams to design and build ships for future fleets. Most observers expect no real growth in the Navy’s budget, and given increased pressures on fed- eral budgets in general, a decline in Navy funding levels in coming years is a possibility. The affordability of the Navy’s long-range shipbuilding plan in particular has become an annual topic of debate. For many years, Navy leaders have been making difficult budget choices between funding current operations and funding investments in future force structure. The coming years will be just as difficult in this regard. Some aspects of the Navy’s resource situation may have technology implications. In particu- lar, technology developments may affect such trends as increases in unit production costs for major naval combatants as well as overall operations cost increases. The rising cost trends have led to recent proposals for extending the life of existing ships and utilizing existing designs for new vessels rather than developing a new design class. The affordability of ships is of great concern. A paper commissioned for this study identifies, as possible changes to reduce cost, “pervasive com- monality . . . completion of ship design before starting construction . . . earlier involvement of shipbuilders in the design process . . . [and] modu- lar outfitting and construction, test and insertion of payloads” (Sullivan 2010, 4). A reduction in the cost of the shipbuilding process has been addressed repeatedly by the Naval Sea Systems Command and shipyards. However, the cost of the combat systems and electronics payload does not appear to have been addressed to the same degree. It was first recognized about 25 years ago that the cost of the combat systems was beginning to exceed the cost of the rest of the ship. An intensified program of research will be necessary to develop the body of knowledge addressing ways to decrease the cost of such combat system elements as radars, missiles, and launchers. This research agenda should be aimed at making advanced, technically sophisticated combat systems entities less expensive. Although the problem of the cost of combat system elements is within the broad scope of naval engineering, research on the topic probably is beyond the scope of the NNR-NE initiative as it is defined at present.

40 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century More generally, research could also address the following deficiencies in the Navy’s capability to manage cost: (a) a lack of robust capabilities to assess cost in the early stage of system development and (b) a lack of tools to investigate methods for decreasing the cost of combat systems elements. While tools to estimate ship cost are also largely undeveloped, the need is widely recognized. There appears to be little recognition of the need for tools to analyze the costs of combat system elements and methods for reducing them. Other consequences of tightening budget constraints are the trend toward reductions in numbers of high-complexity, high-cost warships in the fleet; introduction of lower-cost, smaller vessels; and efforts to reduce ship recapitalization cost through life extension, use of common hulls and systems, and modular techniques. The Navy may find it advan- tageous to emulate the approach used in technology development for commercial ships by seeking careful incremental ship engineering evo- lution rather than revolution. Other technology improvements to reduce overall costs are automated systems that reduce crew size, provision of growth margins to increase life expectancy, systems to evaluate ship ser- vice condition and extend service life, and the use of unmanned vehicles for appropriate missions. Summary Observations Consideration of the future operating environment, future naval opera- tions, and the future resource situation all point to the need for a high degree of reliable, intelligently integrated capabilities in future ships. ONR work in ship design addresses issues of total ship engineering as it relates to treatment of the hull, propulsion plant, and other systems, but research focused on subsystems as integrated entities at the ship level, including the combat system, is lacking. Thus, there is a need for research aimed at producing integrated combat systems as well as a more holistic approach to total ship systems engineering. The term “intelligently inte- grated” in this context is intended to convey the need for a level of sys- tem integration under which modifications and modernization are not impeded by an intertwining of functions that prevents separation and replacement of systems as new ones responsive to emerging threats or

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 41 needed capabilities evolve. A key technology facilitating this flexible albeit tightly integrated ship systems approach is that of open architectures. The above discussion has highlighted the committee’s analyses of research needs based on the Navy’s warfighting prospects. The analyses could provide input to ONR’s management and planning processes for its NNR-NE initiative. While these drivers of future science and technol- ogy initiatives are important to understand and to refer to in the plan- ning process, they are always subject to change, and therefore ONR must support a process that continually updates these factors and presents them to management and researchers at all levels. Chapters 3 and 4 out- line and recommend such processes. Annex 2-1 reviews these factors on the basis of current analyses. It shows a classification of specific technol- ogy implications that ONR could consider in designing and planning its science and technology program in naval engineering and is provided as an example of how ONR planning might be aided by analysis of these trends on a regular basis. A similar process for evaluating and communi- cating future Navy needs would provide ONR with a useful planning tool. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OPPORTUNITIES This section provides examples of recent advances or promising devel- opments in several technical disciplines that may present opportunities for improvement in the performance of naval ships. The Navy sponsors basic and early applied research not only to fulfill performance require- ments identified by the fleet but also to ensure that such opportunities, arising from fundamental scientific and technological advances, are rec- ognized and exploited. Innovation can come from either of two sources. Increasingly demand- ing needs or requirements can “pull” the development of technology to meet the need, and scientific and technological advances can “push” the development of innovative naval systems. A past analysis of the driving forces for progress in naval engineering cites these two and adds a third factor: “wisdom . . . the ability to exercise good judgment relative to the requirements and technology available” (Comstock 1992, 4). A paper commissioned by the committee (Friedman 2010) examines the sources of innovation in naval technology and gives historical exam- ples of how both forces have driven progress in naval ship capabilities.

42 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century The paper examines the history of certain notable developments over the past century or more from the torpedo, the first submarine, and steam power to the aircraft carrier, nuclear power, and electronic warfare. The history of naval innovation provides valuable lessons for today’s plan- ners. One lesson is that the sources of innovation are always difficult to identify: “Few or none [of] the innovators consciously analyzed the char- acter of sea power and then set out to develop something earth-shaking. Some of them must instinctively have grasped the implications of what they were doing. In most cases it is difficult to identify an individual with what is, in retrospect, an obviously decisive development” (Friedman 2010, 2). In addition, “the issue in innovation is always whether require- ments or the innovator (or technology) dominates” (Friedman 2010, 3). ONR appears to have, at a high level, processes acknowledging the push–pull paradigm, through technology advisory boards and supporting processes. However, as Chapters 3 and 4 of this report will illustrate, these processes have not been translated into NNR-NE processes, and they need to be developed for NNR-NE. A continuing challenge will be to ensure that program managers, deeply immersed in the intricacies of technology, always keep sight of the requirements for future systems. The committee’s recommendations for processes that develop NNR-NE capabilities to antic- ipate and respond to push and pull research requirements are presented in the next two chapters. ONR requires enterprisewide processes, such as those proposed in Chapters 3 and 4, to ensure that the Navy is able to cap- italize on both needs- and opportunities-driven science and technology advances to anticipate and respond to future mission requirements. Recommendation: In planning the NNR-NE research portfolio, ONR should search for research directions and research topics by identifying both (a) emerging scientific and technological developments that hold promise for providing new capabilities or new technology options and (b) gaps in fundamental scientific and technical knowledge that are hin- dering fulfillment of needs identified by the operating Navy. The search by ONR for research direction and topics should be systematized, ade- quately funded, measured, and incentivized and should be included as part of the organization’s and its managers’ performance evaluation processes. ONR could produce a valuable list of research opportunities through regular and systematic external consultations with practicing

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 43 naval engineers, the operating Navy, researchers, and other technical experts, and by documenting and publishing the research topic propos- als generated by these consultations. Most of the opportunities identified below were identified by the authors of the committee’s commissioned papers and by the researcher participants in the committee’s workshops. Authors of three papers (Triantafyllou 2010; Sullivan 2010; Firebaugh 2010) were asked for crit- ical assessments of research and technology challenges and potential game-changing opportunities in naval engineering, emphasizing a 15- to 50-year horizon. In addition, they were asked to address new paradigms for the capabilities, operation, design, construction, or maintenance of naval vessels that could be realized through scientific and technological advances in naval engineering and associated fields. At the June 2010 workshop organized by the committee (see Appen- dix A), researchers supported by ONR were invited to discuss the prospects for contributions to naval engineering from research in their fields. Each of the researcher panelists (as well as other researchers who did not attend) responded to the following questions relating to research opportunities: • What are the most significant areas of challenge in your field of research in the next 20 years? What are the hard problems in your field? What are the obstacles to progress in your field? • What directions or focus areas would you recommend for research investment in your field in the next 20 years? • What are the best opportunities for breakthroughs in understand- ing or for the emergence of game-changing technologies in naval engineering? The committee identified opportunities presented by recent advances in four of the NNR-NE technical areas—structural systems, hydromechanics, platform power and energy, and system integration—and opportunities in interdisciplinary collaborative research. Structural Systems Reduced numbers of new ship acquisitions and designs, as well as flat budgets, over the next several decades will require that ONR’s structures

44 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century research program place greater emphasis on the use of design and simu- lation tools in areas such as structural design and optimization, damage- tolerant designs, advanced materials, and life-cycle structural condition monitoring. Advances in mathematical modeling, computational algo- rithms, the speed of computers, and the science and technology of data- intensive computing have prepared the way for improvements in modeling, simulation, and computing. Physics-based simulation enables users to produce virtual prototypes, realistically simulating the behavior of complex systems on computers and quickly analyzing multiple design variations until an optimal design is achieved. Structural design and computational fluid dynamics are sim- ulation applications that can be used to develop optimized hull forms and structures that are more damage-tolerant. Mathematical modeling for these applications involves a multistep process whereby designers generate computer-aided design (CAD) files, which must then be translated into analysis-suitable geometries, meshed, and input into large-scale finite element or other numerical analysis codes. For complex engineering designs such as the hull structure of a ship, this is a laborious and time-consuming effort. The significant advance made with the development of isogeometric analysis (T. J. R. Hughes, statement submitted to the committee, May 16, 2010) can be viewed as a fundamen- tal game changer with its potential to unify CAD and engineering analysis methodologies. Nearly all CAD, computer-aided manufacturing, and computer- aided engineering systems are based on nonuniform rational B-spline (NURBS) mathematical functions that are used to generate curves and surfaces of free-form shape. The development of isogeometric analysis uses the same NURBS geometry directly in the finite element formula- tions. This represents a new approach in finite elements, since the basis functions used in the finite element formulations are NURBS instead of the traditional interpolation or shape functions. It has also been shown that the numerical accuracy and robustness of the spline-based approx- imations are superior to those of the traditional finite element approach. The successful application of NURBS-based finite elements is one of the significant achievements associated with isogeometric analysis.

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 45 For practical design applications, isogeometric analysis eliminates dif- ferences between the CAD and finite element model geometries since they are one and the same, which greatly simplifies the design and analysis process, improves the geometric and numerical accuracy of the results, and reduces the overall design–analysis cycle time. Since isogeometric analysis is applicable to computational mechanics in general, there is also the potential for integration between engineering disciplines such as fluid–structure interactions. ONR needs to place priority on research in isogeometric analysis so that applications will be available for Navy ships in such areas as structures, hydrodynamics, fluid–structure interaction, computational mechanics, and electromagnetic signatures. Research in developing improved technologies and models for mon- itoring, inspecting, and assessing the condition of ships in service and estimating their remaining service lives should also be a priority. With fewer new ships, the potential for extending ships’ service lives (e.g., up to 40 or 50 years), and the possibility of sea swap (i.e., extended duration deployments with crew rotation) for ships deployed in ballistic missile defense, ships will be at sea for much longer periods. As ships in service age, their structural integrity is affected by corrosion and fatigue, which occurs when the ship’s hull is subjected to repeated loading and unload- ing in sea waves. Corrosion and fatigue can result in damage to the ship and reduced service life. In-service structural health monitoring of ships is an important com- ponent of their life-cycle management. Structural health management involves the ability to identify, locate, and characterize damage on a real-time basis and to predict the structure’s performance and remain- ing service life. Such information is needed for making timely decisions affecting operational guidance, inspection, maintenance, and safety of a ship. For example, model-based structural health monitoring capa- ble of treating uncertainty is a promising research direction. Research and advances in such areas as engineering mechanics, computational mechanics, applied mathematics, sensor technology, and signals pro- cessing will be required. Corrosion control is a major problem in the maintenance of any ship, especially as ships age. New coatings that are durable enough to last the

46 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century life of the ship are needed. Research into the development of nontoxic, ceramic nanoengineered coatings with significant potential for reducing resistance of the hull from their super-hydrophobic property and an ability to reduce biofouling and corrosion shows promise (Triantafyllou 2010). The Navy, within or outside of ONR, needs to focus more on coatings technology research. Hydromechanics and Hull Design; Propulsors Significant scientific and technical challenges continue to confront the areas of hydrodynamics, hull design, and propulsors. The following list identifies key subject areas and highlights relevant issues for each. • Full-scale experiments: In the context of fundamental or academic research, results gained from such experiments continue to provide valu- able information about the basic physics of the processes of interest. However, the ability to deploy such information in a more applied research and development (R&D) context, whether through empirically based models or by using the information to validate and extend numer- ical models, remains limited. More activity in this area is necessary. • Capsize prediction tools: Capsize prediction tools based on mode advanced computational methods, such as free-surface Reynolds- averaged Navier–Stokes tools, have demonstrated viability in canon- ical model studies. However, the computational cost of using such tools is high, so in a design environment, tools for capsize predictions continue to be based on relatively simplistic numerical models. Fur- ther advances, at both the research and the application level, in cap- size prediction tools based on the methods of computational fluid dynamics should be sought by taking greater advantage of the large- scale high-performance computing (HPC) resources available to the ONR community. • Full-scale, broad-banded, unsteady multiphase ship-generated hydro- dynamics, including fluid–structure interactions over a range of con- ditions: This is a complex problem, and an understanding of and the ability to predict it require development and application of multiple advanced computational techniques and their validation with data from experimental or full-scale measurement. A critical challenge on

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 47 the computational front is the limited development of new numerical models across multiple flow and structural scales and the ability to inte- grate them to investigate the full-scale, broad-banded problem. It can be argued that many currently supported research activities in model- ing of multiphase hydrodynamics remain focused on mature rather than new numerical algorithms. • Tools to see inside multiphase turbulent flows: Fundamental research activity in this area is strong; however, it should be given more support in a more applied R&D context. Without support, such tools will not mature quickly. • Tool development in stochastic methods, extreme event statistics, and nonlinear system analysis: Fundamental research activity in this area is strong; however, it should be given additional support in a more applied R&D context through identification of relevant canonical problems and application of such tools to them. • Data fusion relating to merging numerical and experimental data: In the aerospace community, data fusion methods for merging numerical and experimental data are regularly practiced and are well advanced. The ocean–naval engineering community should develop a research path in this area that builds on methods already developed and lessons already learned by the aerospace community. • Passive and active flow control techniques: Activity in this area would be strengthened by better alignment between basic research and appli- cations that would benefit from flow control. Basic research alone pro- vides insight into the physics of canonical flow control, but without subsequent assessment of flow control technologies, the fluid mechan- ical advantages (if any) that are gained are not clear. • Tools to support novel hull and appendage designs: Technical and sci- entific progress in these areas is feasible, and successes would likely lead to improved naval capabilities. The following are research areas that workshop participants cited as worthy of increased attention: – Improved integration of propulsor and hull hydrodynamic inter- action on ships, – Predictive tools for propulsor performance in extreme ship motions (such as those caused by weather), – Interactive educational tools in propulsor design,

48 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century – Understanding of unsteady forcing and geometry designed with unsteady flow control, – Improved methods for predicting effects of turbulence on fluid motion, and – Ability to produce computational fluid dynamics model results in near real time. As in the case of capsize prediction tools, further advances, particularly in numerical tools, at both the research and the application level should be sought by taking greater advantage of the large-scale HPC resources available to the ONR community. In addition, the limited development of new models is a challenge, since a number of currently supported research projects remain focused on mature rather than new numerical technologies. Platform Power and Energy The use of power electronics–based integrated systems to manage power and energy needs and efficiency is a technology that could have great impact on the performance of future Navy ships. Advances in the tech- nology are the key to deployment of future high-power radar and elec- trically powered weapon systems, especially on smaller ships. ONR has adequately supported research on defining power electronics–based sys- tems and design of components including converters, generators, storage systems, and design tools. However, research is needed on the dynamics of future power systems in which required weapons loads exceed avail- able generation and on the problem of integrating future power and energy systems into overall ship design. The following assumptions concerning the possible characteristics and capabilities of future power and energy systems may be made to guide planning of research and development: • Propulsion, weapons, and practically all other functions including air- craft launching will be electrical. Several large ship hydraulic systems may use electric actuation, which will require energy storage to be fully integrated into the actuation system (e.g., control surfaces, blast deflec- tors, hatches).

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 49 • The power required, including that for pulse and short-duration load, will far exceed available generation, and therefore an integrated and distributed system along with some form of storage will be essential. • Space and weight constraints prevent providing each weapon with its own power supply or storage. • Fuel cells could have a significant role (although supplying the fuel remains a problem). • Power electronics allow use of medium-voltage direct current, to elim- inate transformers and circuit breakers. The development of power and energy systems for future ships with these characteristics cannot proceed in isolation but must be conducted as an element of a total ship system design process. Examples of power and energy system design questions that can be answered only within the context of total ship system design include the following: • Load requirements as dictated by the ship’s speed, range, and duty cycle; • Power management system requirements to accommodate different kinds of loads under normal operation and contingencies; • The impact of pulse loading on the main and auxiliary gas turbine generators for determination of changes in mean time between fail- ures, life expectancy, and ability of the turbine to follow rapid load changes (at present, there is no valid naval database for this type of pulse load operating scenario with large gas turbine generator sets); • Forms of energy storage to be used (e.g., the ship’s inertia may be a source for short-term loads); • The impact of cable weight and dimensions on overall ship design and the value of reducing cable weight; and • The impact of raising the main generation and distribution voltage level to reduce short circuit current levels, to lower cable weights, and to allow more cost-effective power electronics to be implemented at the upper end of the medium voltage level, such as 20 kV. There is a need for basic and applied research on methods of integrat- ing the development of future power and energy systems into overall ship design so that development of power systems can proceed with the

50 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century assurance that critical constraints and trade-offs have been recognized and evaluated. Attention to the integration problem is essential if future ships are to accommodate the radar and weapon systems that the Navy wishes to use. It has been recognized that integration of distributed mul- tiple energy storage subsystems on a surface ship (e.g., DDG-51 FLT III Class) can justify a lower overall power generation requirement and plant size for the array of gas turbine generators, further allowing an overall weight reduction in installed equipment. The use of energy storage can also allow a higher input power to the new radar transmitter systems, per- mitting better signal discrimination. Developments in electric actuation for submarines can also be applied to surface ships for conversion of hydraulic systems such as hatch, door, and jet blast deflector operators to electric technology. All critical elec- tric actuation requires a dedicated or common energy storage subsystem. New energy storage developments in battery and high-speed compact rotating machinery must be fully addressed, especially in regard to low- cost, higher-voltage systems. As in the case of ship design tools, ONR planning for basic research in power and energy is likely to be productive only if there is clear over- all Navy direction and planning for adopting power electronics–based and advanced rotating machinery–based power systems. There is a need in the U.S. defense industry for boosting development of 20-kV-level turboelectric machinery to counter the recent developments in Europe and Japan in compact turbomachinery. Identifying the research pathway that leads efficiently to the development of new power systems will require enterprisewide organization of basic and applied research, devel- opment, and testing. The organization must be a model of the process that the 2005 National Research Council Committee on Department of Defense Basic Research described as follows: “DOD should view basic research, applied research, and development as continuing activities occurring in parallel, with numerous supporting connections through- out the process” (NRC 2005, 2). Basic and applied research areas that should be pursued to support power electronics–based integrated power systems are as follows: • Advanced multidisciplinary design tools; • Electrical system configurations and layout, distributed and zonal;

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 51 • High-frequency generators; • High-speed, high-frequency compact drive motors; • Variable speed drives; • Fuel for fuel cells; • Advanced controls, protections, and communications; • Advanced power devices; • Converter topologies permitting 8-kV to 20-kV direct current link voltages; • Thermal management; • Fault current management, including superconducting fault limiters; • Storage: capacitors, batteries, flywheels, and ship motion; • Hybrid energy storage such as combined rotating machinery– flywheel–battery systems; • Power management, in normal conditions with high efficiency and also in emergency conditions; • Solid prefabricated bus bars; • Grounding; • Arcing and advanced arc fault detectors; • Insulation; • Subsystem and system-level testing and demonstrations; and • Information system for operation and maintenance. System Integration and System Engineering The NNR-NE portfolio presented to the committee appears not to include research on systems engineering methods themselves as applicable to the development of ships and other naval systems. A paper presented at the 2009 Conference on Systems Engineering Research included a discus- sion of “grand challenges” in systems engineering and includes the follow- ing observation applicable to complex naval systems (Kalawsky 2009): Systems engineering is rapidly becoming recognized as a key discipline in a number of sectors including Aerospace & Defence, Automotive, Construc- tion, Energy, Transportation, Consumer Electronics, IT, Pharmaceutical & Healthcare and Telecommunications. This trend is driven by growing sys- tem complexity and the need for optimal integration of people, processes and technologies. Consequently, the sheer scale of future system complexity is likely to exceed our current understanding of systems engineering and the

52 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century associated tools and techniques we employ. The number of overall system parameters to be controlled as part of the overall design process (as various system optimisations are undertaken) is likely to be overwhelming. Whilst systems engineers will be expected to manage system complexity the under- pinning understanding of systems science, technology and tools must evolve to take account of the increasing systems complexity. Unless enabling research is undertaken there is a growing risk that available tools will be inadequate for the future. The paper proposes a research agenda based on a series of grand chal- lenges in systems engineering. Each grand challenge is a set of goals that are to be attained over the next one to two decades and that would con- stitute a major breakthrough in the field. The challenges proposed include development of an ultrascalable autonomous system architecture; verifi- cation, validation, and assurance of extremely complex systems; and total system representation in modeling and simulation (Kalawsky 2009). Related problems that are central concerns of naval engineering and may be amenable to resolution through basic and early applied research but that are excluded from the six-field definition of NNR-NE’s scope include the following: • Estimation of acquisition, life-cycle, and producibility costs. Systems engineering and other research may be applicable to improving Navy cost-estimating capabilities. • Tools for investigating holistic effects of ship service life on costs. The tools could help provide answers to questions such as the following: Does increased service life decrease overall cost? Would shorter ser- vice lives, with no modernization over the life cycle, be more cost- effective? Would the latter strategy result in a more robust industrial base or allow acquisition costs to be partially offset by sale of retired ships? • Shipbuilding technology. While shipbuilding itself appears not to be included in any of the NNR-NE technical areas, it is mentioned promi- nently in the 2001 ONR memorandum defining NNR-NE. Shipbuild- ing, of course, is performed by industry, and mechanisms such as the National Shipbuilding Research Program exist to encourage the indus- try to initiate needed research in shipyard processes and efficiency.

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 53 Close relations between ONR and the shipbuilding industry would be likely to lead to identification of opportunities for NNR-NE research that complemented these industry efforts. • “Smart” systems. It is apparent that automated and smart systems capabilities will be of growing importance with the emergence of all- electric ships, integrated electric propulsion, and the desire for oper- ations that are both robust and robustly reconfigurable. The increased use of unmanned vehicles, some with autonomous capabilities, and the increased availability of smart sensors make total ship adaptive automation control of heterogeneous systems an alluring goal. An area that would likely benefit from the research in this area is shipboard damage control. Historically, this capability has been dependent on significant personnel resources. Smart automated and adaptive systems could provide the ability to configure shipboard systems rapidly to survive anticipated hits, to detect and evaluate damage and fire spread and provide guidance to crews, and to control deflooding systems. Multidisciplinary Opportunities Because large naval ships are among the most complex free-standing structures ever created and the most complex mobile structures, integra- tion always has been a central problem of naval engineering (Triantafyl- lou 2010, 16). The preceding section noted the importance of research into system integration that seeks to discover general methods for opti- mizing ship design, given the constraints imposed by materials, struc- tures, power systems, and hull and propulsor performance. This section describes research into a second kind of integration: research that inte- grates advances from multiple discrete scientific disciplines to open new technological opportunities. Paper authors and workshop participants repeatedly emphasized the potential value of multidisciplinary research as a source of innovation in naval engineering and predicted that the best opportunities for break- throughs will be through interdisciplinary initiatives and the leverag- ing of advances in other fields. They made the following observations

54 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century (see Appendix A for reference to the presentations of K. Mahesh, T. Fu, S. Morris, and D. E. Hess): • Exploiting advances in materials science and in chemistry will be key to progress on the hull design problems with which hydrodynamics is concerned. • Biomechanics-inspired design also may lead to progress on hull design. • Progress in fluid mechanics will be driven by collaborations among experimental, theoretical, and numerical investigations. Investments in basic numerical and experimental research using the combined strengths of these methods would advance knowledge of unsteady flow physics and the ability to design geometries that operate in unsteady flows. • Research on hydrodynamic signatures and wakes is inherently inter- disciplinary, involving hydrodynamics, vehicle dynamics and control, physical oceanography, and the physics of electromagnetic scattering. • Current work in nonlinear systems, nonlinear control, deep machine learning, and remote sensing all could provide opportunities for major naval engineering breakthroughs. • The advances in ship hydrodynamics are tied to mechanical and aero- space engineering, computer science, high-performance computing, and measurement system technology. Multidisciplinary collaboration has accelerated research accomplishments. Workshop participants observed that naval engineering problems are generally not well known to researchers not directly engaged in the field, and therefore multidisciplinary collaboration must be fostered by pro- moting opportunities for technical interactions among university and naval researchers. The committee commissioned a survey of emerging technologies from a multidisciplinary perspective and asked the author to speculate on potential game-changing opportunities (Triantafyllou 2010). The author argues that the discipline of naval engineering is being revitalized by capitalizing on scientific advances and new technologies from other fields and that leading-edge research is increasingly multidisciplinary. This trend is reflected in the increasingly diverse disciplinary backgrounds of new faculty in university departments of mechanical, naval, ocean, and

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 55 marine engineering (Triantafyllou 2010, 1–2). The paper identifies eight emerging technologies with the potential to reshape naval engineering (Triantafyllou 2010, 1–2): • Efficient power trains, including hybrid systems; efficient engines using alternative fuels; and fuel cells that use conventional fuels more efficiently; • Advances in surface chemistry allowing development of novel coat- ings that can be used to protect ship hulls and cargo holds, to reduce deposits in pipelines, and to reduce fluid drag; • New methods that are emerging from work on the all-electric ship con- cept to design and operate ships with increased automation, reduced manning, and increased reliability; • New sensor arrays, which will allow sensing of self-generated flow and enable active flow manipulation and hence increased capabilities for maneuvering and efficient propulsion; • Robotic developments that promise routine unmanned inspection and remote underwater intervention; • Smart autonomous underwater vehicles that increase the operational capability of ships and submarines substantially; • New high-strength steels that improve hull protection against impact and fatigue, including operation in very cold climates; and • Global ocean modeling and prediction that will aid routing and oper- ation of vessels in rough seas. These technological possibilities arise from advances in a diverse array of fields, including materials science (high-strength steels, nanomaterials), chemistry (low-carbon fuels, fuel cells), electrical engineering (power electronics), information sciences (stochastic modeling), robotics, and computer sciences (high-speed computing for, e.g., real-time simulation of ocean wave fields for automated ship handling). Summary Observations The sections above identify particular areas of research that hold promise for advancing naval engineering and naval ship capabilities. Across these topical areas, the following two unifying themes emerge.

56 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century Conclusion: Basic research is needed on the problem of integrating ship systems, and research on components will stay on a productive course only if it is tightly linked to long-term programs of research and development of total ship systems. This need is especially appar- ent in the areas of power and energy systems and ship design tools. Conclusion: It is likely that the future of naval engineering lies in incorporating advances from younger and rapidly advancing disci- plines. If it is to maintain its relevance, the NNR-NE research port- folio must reflect this trend. Recommendation: Because of the importance and complexity of emerging problems in naval engineering science and technology, along with demands for integrative and interdisciplinary research across all technological disciplines (NRC 1999), ONR should con- sider, as part of its continuous process improvement and assessment practices, adopting integrative and interdisciplinary metrics of perfor- mance in and across each of the NNR-NE functional areas. The paper cited in the preceding subsection notes that ONR already is sponsoring initiatives that promote multidisciplinary collaboration, including the electric ship initiative (Triantafyllou 2010, 7). REFERENCES Abbreviation NRC National Research Council Comstock, E. N. 1992. Concept to Reality: An Equation for Progress in Advanced Vessels. In Hydrodynamics: Computation, Model Tests and Reality (H. J. J. van den Boom, ed.), Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Firebaugh, M. S. 2010. The Future for Naval Engineering. Paper commissioned by the committee, Sept. Friedman, N. 2010. Game-Changing Ships and Related Systems. Paper commissioned by the committee, June. Kalawsky, R. S. 2009. Grand Challenges for Systems Engineering Research: Setting the Agenda. Presented at 7th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research, April 20–23, Loughborough University, United Kingdom.

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 57 NRC. 1999. Evaluating Federal Research Programs: Research and the Government Perfor- mance and Results Act. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. NRC. 2005. Assessment of Department of Defense Basic Research. National Academies Press, Washington, D.C. O’Rourke, R. 2010. Some Potential Technology Implications of the Navy’s Future. Paper commissioned by the committee, April 30. Sullivan, P. E. 2010. Naval Ship Design and Construction: Topics for the Research and Development Community. Paper commissioned by the committee, June 10. Triantafyllou, M. 2010. Science and Technology Challenges and Potential Game Chang- ing Opportunities. Paper commissioned by the committee, May.

Annex 2-1 Technology Implications for the Future Navy The table below lists technology needs arising from 1. The Navy’s future operating environment, 2. Future naval operations, and 3. Future resource prospects. In addition, it identifies implications of these needs for research prior- ities in ONR’s NNR-NE. The table was prepared by the committee and is based on a paper commissioned by the committee (O’Rourke 2010). 1. The Navy’s Future Operating Environment Threat Technology Need ONR NNR-NE Implication 1. Adversaries with • More capable shipboard radars • Next generation heating, ven- • Improved networking antiaccess weapons tilating, and air-conditioning; technologies—linking ships – China energy; and propulsion with off-board sensors and – Iran systems networks • Distributed, sensor-intensive • High-power directed energy hull, mechanical, and electrical weapons, particularly lasers networks (versus platform- • Improved terminal-phase intensive) (endoatmospheric) ballistic • Integrated weapon systems; missile defense interceptor to hybrid energy, hybrid network augment the SM-3 exoatmo- systems spheric interceptor • Network, communication, • Soft-kill options for countering electrical networks to antiship ballistic missiles support multiple attacks on • Mine countermeasures kill chain • Operating outside range of • Antiship cruise missile as a antiaccess weapons potential game-changer 58

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 59 1. The Navy’s Future Operating Environment (continued) Threat Technology Need ONR NNR-NE Implication • Materials research— wake homers, damage control, absorbing warhead detonation • Hydroacoustics—wake homers • Distributed sensor networks • System integration—on board and off board; hybrid architectures • Damage control and fire suppression 2. Adversaries with • Protection and offensive capa- • Computer, network, data cyberwarfare and bilities for network, comput- center, database, operating antisatellite ing, communications, platform, system applications capabilities and sensor protection – Redundancy – Availability – Maintainability – Resilience – Shareability – Security – Supportability – Sustainability • Distributed electrical, com- puter, network architectures • Virtualization—transfer services, capabilities, and security from hardware to software • Cloud architectures— software as platform, hybrid architectures 3. Adversaries with • Protection and offensive • Hull, mechanical, and electri- nuclear weapons capability versus nuclear- cal structures hardened armed states to overpressure, electro- • Protection and offensive magnetic pulse, radioactive capability versus nonstate fallout actors • Materials protection, reaction, offensive capability (continued on next page)

60 60 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century 1. The Navy’s Future Operating Environment (continued) Threat Technology Need ONR NNR-NE Implication 4. Terrorist and irregular • Proliferation of antiship cruise • Procurement strategies and warfare threats to missiles measures of effectiveness forward-deployed • Sensors, barriers, unmanned (DDG 51 versus DDG 1000) naval ships vehicles, lethal and nonlethal • Hardened, absorbent, reactive, weapons for countering small offensive materials boats, minisubmarines, and • Materials and hull structures swimmers with embedded sensors, • Sensors and weapons for forensic analysis, autonomous cost-effectively countering damage control rockets and mortars • Human system integration • Topside equipment that can with hull forms, materials, withstand rocket and mortar sensors, structures attacks 5. Limited or uncertain • Maritime Prepositioning Force • Energy systems and solutions access to, and of the Future [MPF(F)] • On-board and off-board hull, vulnerability of, • At-sea arrival and assembly of mechanical, and electrical sys- overseas land bases Marine forces tems, sensor integration • Launching Marine operations • Human–machine interface, ashore directly from MPF(F) integration ships • Nuclear propulsion • Eliminate need to establish an • Self-healing–self-repairing, intermediate land base resilient systems, materials, structures, automation and mechanical systems 6. Diminishment of • Increased human activity in • Energy systems and solutions Arctic sea ice Arctic • Adverse weather monitoring, • Arctic and cold weather anticipation, routing, rescue, operations, support, logistics, deployment, operational training, education, rescue systems • Comprehensive air, land, sea, • Data analysis, cleansing, maritime, space, submarine, integration and cyber monitoring • Cyber and structure, hull, • Maritime Domain Awareness materials integration • New and strengthened materials, hulls, structures, propulsion systems, topside, integration systems • Hardened, ice- and temperature-resistant human–machine interfaces and systems (e.g., for man- aging fatigue, heat and cold, vigilance, etc.)

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 61 1. The Navy’s Future Operating Environment (continued) Threat Technology Need ONR NNR-NE Implication 7. Policy-maker focus • Fuel expenditure reductions • Energy-efficiency metrics, on energy use and • Fuel-related logistics tail incentives, measuring systems alternative energy management • Hydrodynamic performance • Department of Defense (DOD) improvements petroleum dependence, vulner- • Fuel systems—alternative and ability to disruptions in oil bio, nuclear, organic, hybrid, imports electric, multiple phase and • DOD greenhouse gas emissions multiple drive (mitigate DOD contribution, • Propulsion systems: hybrid set example), without reducing drive and electric drive, gas military effectiveness turbines, bio and alternative • Energy-efficient shipboard fuels, cells; kite- and sail- equipment assisted propulsion • Stern flaps, hull coatings, • Energy systems—bio, alter- environmentally friendly native, electrical, solar, wind, coatings grid and nongrid, hybrid architectures 2. Future Naval Operations Threat Technology Need ONR NNR-NE Implication 8. Ballistic missile • Protection and offensive capa- • BMD hull, mechanical, and defense (BMD) bility versus proliferation of electrical integration operations theater-range ballistic missiles • BMD fuel, energy, electrical • Emergence of China’s antiship system, computing, communi- ballistic missile cations, network bandwidth • Administration choice to resource management deploy Aegis ships for Euro- • BMD safety, protection pean BMD operations • Human factors research— • Expanding BMD operations in vigilance; sleep deprivation; coming years heating, ventilating, and air- • 10 of 22 Aegis cruisers, and all conditioning impacts; electro- Aegis destroyers, to be magnetic emissions equipped for BMD operations • Human factors crew swap • Integrating Aegis BMD with out, multiple crew, reduced other elements of planned manning European BMD architecture • Crew systems integration • Adapting Aegis BMD into Aegis Ashore configuration • Developing MS-3 Block II-B missile to be used at Aegis shore sites (continued on next page)

62 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century 2. Future Naval Operations (continued) Threat Technology Need ONR NNR-NE Implication • Developing shipboard tech- nologies for facilitating use of multiple crewing or sea swap on BMD-capable Aegis ships 9. Counterterrorism • Protection and offensive capa- • Improved ship-based intelli- and irregular bilities versus counterinsur- gence, surveillance, and warfare operations gency, stability, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabil- counterterrorism operations ities, including autonomous • Support Navy Irregular underwater vehicles capable Warfare Office, Naval Expedi- of conducting persistent ISR tionary Combat Command, operations riverine squadrons, Navy • Expeditionary electronic Foreign Area Officer program, warfare, signals intelligence, naval civil reserve battalion counterimprovised explosive device, explosive ordnance disposal, and riverine capabilities • Fast to target, low-collateral- damage strike weapons • Capabilities to covertly insert and recover Navy special operations forces; follow on to Advanced Swimmer Delivery System 10. Antipiracy operations • Protection and offensive • Cost-effective antipiracy capability versus states solutions • Protection and offensive • Improved ISR capabilities capability versus nonstate • Autonomous underwater actors vehicles for persistent ISR • Discriminating threats from nonthreats (pirates versus nonpirates) • Nonlethal weapons platforms, integration 11. Partner capacity- • Navy forces engage navies • Improved education and train- building operations and coast guards of other ing facilities, ship-based or countries to improve their portable modules capacities for conducting • Language, organizational maritime security operations culture, multicultural training

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 63 2. Future Naval Operations (continued) Threat Technology Need ONR NNR-NE Implication 12. Humanitarian • Humanitarian operations • Technologies permitting rapid assistance and • Strengthen U.S. relationships detailed surveys and assess- disaster response with assisted countries ments of damaged areas and operations • Improve foreign public opinion rapid dissemination of that of United States information to the field (includ- • Various ship types—hospital ing airborne sensors) ships, amphibious ships, sur- • Technologies for improved face combatants, aircraft carri- ship-to-shore transfer of relief ers, aircraft, especially supplies and equipment, par- helicopters ticularly when airports and • Technologies permitting field seaports are damaged and personnel to reach back to dis- inoperable tantly located medical or other • Rapidly repairing damaged specialists for advice and seaports and airports information • Portable power generation, • Technologies to rapidly water purification, sanitary reestablish basic communica- and medical care modules that tions and civil governance can be installed aboard ship 13. Cyberoperations 3. Future Resource Prospects Threat Technology Need ONR NNR-NE Implication 14. Increases in ship • Reductions in significant cost • Cost-effective materials and aircraft growth [littoral combat ship • Materials, structures, systems, procurement costs (LCS), F-35 Joint Strike Fighter] and integration that reduce • Greater use of common hulls, cost, weight, size (electric systems, and components drive equipment) • Increasing modularity use in • Technologies for reduced ship design and construction crews • Incorporating increasing • Human–machine interfaces, design-for-producibility, human factors research for improved production reduced manning engineering • Improved construction processes and methods (National Shipbuilding Research Program) (continued on next page)

64 Naval Engineering in the 21st Century 3. Future Resource Prospects (continued) Threat Technology Need ONR NNR-NE Implication 15. Reduced ship and • Procure significant quantities • Improved, more rugged, and aircraft procurement of relatively inexpensive ships more durable materials rates [LCS, Joint High Speed Vessel • Ships with greater growth (JHSV)] margins • FY2011–2015 shipbuilding • Ships with open architecture plan has 50 ships (25 of which combat; hull, mechanical, are LCS and JHSV)—an aver- and electrical systems; and age of 10 per year, compared physical open architecture to single-digit ships per year features to facilitate 1993–2009 modernization • Beyond 2015, LCS and JHSV • Materials and techniques for expire—SSBN(X) next genera- corrosion control tion submarine and few other • Technologies and models for ships monitoring, inspecting, assess- • Increase percent of time spent ing condition of in-service on deployment ships and estimating their • Increase use of unmanned remaining service lives vehicles • Redundant, more reliable, self- repairing, and self-diagnosing systems • Multiple crew and sea swap technologies • Human factors, human– systems integration research for reduced crews, reduced crew operations, tasks, performance 16. Operations and • Improved estimates for total • Automation, integration, and support cost crowd cost of ownership in design systems design for reduced out funding for and evaluation of ships manning crews procurement • CVN-78 USS Gerald R. Ford • Human factors research, class aircraft carriers have human–systems integration life-cycle operations and research for reduced crew support costs several billion operations, tasks, performance dollars less than that of • Improved performance moni- the Nimitz (CVN-68) class toring of hull, mechanical, and carriers electrical systems; topsides; • Increased use of unmanned structures; propulsion sys- vehicles as substitutes for tems; electric grid, system and manned subsystems • Energy use and alternative energy solutions • Corrosion control and materials research

Science and Technology Shaping Future Naval Fleets 65 3. Future Resource Prospects (continued) Threat Technology Need ONR NNR-NE Implication • Monitoring, inspecting, and assessing in-service ships • Open-architecture combat and other systems and physi- cal open architecture features to reduce life-cycle modern- ization costs • Strategies and technologies to 17. Limited number of • Greater use of common hull introduce new capabilities new ship and designs through modifications to exist- aircraft designs ing ship designs • Ship design and simulation tools to assess and simulate integration, use, failure, and response to failure • Road maps for introducing technologies (integrated elec- tric drive and composite struc- tures) into DDG 51 that were previously planned to be intro- duced through new acquisition procurement REFERENCE O’Rourke, R. 2010. Some Potential Technology Implications of the Navy’s Future. Paper commissioned by the committee, April 30.

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Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets -- Special Report 306 Get This Book
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TRB Special Report 306: Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets examines the state of basic and applied research in the scientific fields that support naval engineering and explores whether Office of Naval Research (ONR) activities, under its National Naval Responsibility for Naval Engineering (NNR-NE) initiative, have been effective in sustaining these fields.

The committee developed a series of conclusions and recommendations in five areas--the value of the NNR-NE, the state of science and technology supporting naval engineering, the wholeness of the NNR-NE research portfolio, opportunities for enhancement of research and education, and the effectiveness of the NNR-NE initiative.

The report's recommendations are addressed to the administrators of the NNR-NE initiative and of ONR.

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