Affiliations: Institute of High Performance Computing, 89C, Science
Park Drive 02-11/12, The Rutherford, Singapore Science Park I, Singapore
118261, Singapore. Tel.: +65 776167; Fax: +65 7761962; E-mail:
zongzhi@ihpc.nus.edu.sg; lamky@ihpc.nus.edu.sg | Naval Logistics Department, MINDEF Building, Gombak
Drive, Singapore 669645, Singapore. E-mail: tlkkgan@singnet.com.sg
Abstract: Biodynamic response of shipboard crew to underwater shock is of a
major concern to navies. An underwater shock can produce very high
accelerations, resulting in severe human injuries aboard a battleship.
Protection of human bodies from underwater shock is implemented by installing
onboard isolators. In this paper, the optimal underwater shock isolation to
protect human bodies is studied. A simple shock-structure-isolator-human
interaction model is first constructed. The model incorporates the effect of
fluid-structure interaction, biodynamic response of human body, isolator
influence. Based on this model, the optimum shock isolation is then formulated.
The performance index and restriction are defined. Thirdly, GA (genetic
algorithm) is employed to solve the formulated optimization problem. GA is a
powerful evolutionary optimization scheme suitable for large-scale and
multi-variable optimization problems that are otherwise hard to be solved by
conventional methods. A brief introduction to GA is given in the paper.
Finally, the method is applied to an example problem and the limiting
performance characteristic is obtained.
Keywords: biodynamic response, underwater shock, optimal isolation, GA (genetic algorithm)
