The first in RINA’s long-running series of ‘Warship’ conferences outside the UK took place in Adelaide, Australia in June 2024, and focused on the Royal Australian Navy’s significant need for, and investment in, new vessels.
As Rob Gehling, Secretary of the institution’s Australian Division explained, the conference was organised by RINA headquarters in the UK, with support from long-time sponsor BMT, supported by ANSYS, ASC, Babcock, Defence SA, SH Defence and University of Adelaide.
The conference focussed on a wide range of subjects related to the theme ‘Future Surface Combatants,’ including:
- Future surface fleet mix
- Design for constructability and supportability
- Facilities and shipbuilding
- Automation in design and construction
- Digital engineering
- Offboard autonomy and partially or fully autonomous ships
- Disruptive technologies.
During the conference, ASC Shipbuilding (BAE Systems) conducted informative group tours of its Osborne South shipyard on the afternoon preceding the Conference.
Following strong support from industry sponsors and with registrations running ahead of expectations ahead of the conference, Rear-Admiral Rachel Durbin, Head of Naval Engineering, pronounced the conference a success in her opening keynote address. Her address included an explanation of the Australian Government’s plan to implement the ‘Enhanced Lethality Surface Combatant Fleet’ review.
The second keynote address was presented by Glen Callow, Chief Technology Officer at Austal Limited. He drew parallels between his pre-Austal experience in the establishment of autonomous trucks in the mining industry and the development of autonomous ships.
The conference was run in two streams over the two days, with papers covering subjects including:
- Large uncrewed surface vessels
- Ship design
- Production
- Energy
- Human Factors
- Digital engineering
- Survivability
- Structures
Several of the papers presented at the conference are highlighted in the October 024 issue of Warship Technology and others will be highlighted in future issues.
In addition to the many papers from around Australia, there was good representation of speakers from overseas including the UK, Canada, US, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Singapore, with registrants also from Japan and New Zealand.
The final session concluded with a wrap-up discussion chaired by Jake Rigby of primary sponsor BMT, who had acted as technical chair of the conference, touching on many of the subjects listed above.
The success of the conference was illustrated by registrant numbers, which were significantly higher than in previous years.
