Curved Panel Concepts

Some of the concepts described for plane panels are relevant also for curved panel (panels in sculptured surfaces). However, some are special as described in this section.

The stiffeners in curved panels are called shell stiffeners. As described in the document Model Structures, shell profiles are organized in structures in two levels. Objects on the upper reference level collect a number of parts along the whole ship, identified by a number, for example, the longitudinal number. This type of reference object is called a shell profile, containing in principle only the references to a number of shell stiffeners.

A shell profile is either a longitudinal frame (or longitudinal for short) if oriented in the longitudinal direction of a ship or a transversal frame (or transversal) if oriented mainly in the transverse direction.