Arctic Ship Design Impacts: Green Arctic Patrol Vessel (GAPV) Project

摘要

Arctic warming and the resulting polar ice break up, is expected to increase traffic through the Arctic region for tourism, research, resource extraction, and transportation purposes. Understanding the US will have a strategic objective in the region in the coming decades, the current US Navy (USN) fleet is not designed to meet the challenges of operating in an Arctic environment. Anticipating that need, the Green Arctic Patrol Vessel (GAPV) project was started as a summer intern project in the Center for Innovation in Ship Design (CISD) at Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division (NSWCCD) during the summer of 2009, and has completed its third iteration. The project developed a concept of operations and notional design for a USN Arctic Patrol Vessel capable of meeting current gaps in Arctic operational capability. The goal of this paper is to describe this vessel's design and highlight many of the high level impacts the Arctic environment has and will have on surface combatant design.