The Intelligent Layout of the Ship Piping System Based on the Optimization Algorithm

The ship piping layout is one of the essential tasks in the detailed design stage of a ship. Traditional manual expert design has disadvantages such as low efficiency, reliance on experience, and subjective influence. Therefore, this paper systematically proposes an intelligent arrangement method for ships' single, parallel, and branch pipelines. Firstly, the traditional genetic algorithm is improved and combined with the A* algorithm to solve the intelligent arrangement problem of a single pipeline in ships. Then, the parallel pipeline and branch pipeline are split into multiple single pipelines by combining with the connection point strategy to solve the arrangement problem of parallel pipeline and branch pipeline. Finally, the optimized A*-genetic algorithm proposed in this paper is compared with the A* algorithm, particle swarm algorithm, and the labyrinth-genetic algorithm used in previous research through simulation experiments. The results show that the A*-genetic algorithm of this paper is optimal in six indexes, including length, number of elbows, energy value, fitness value, number of optimal solutions, and average number of convergence generations, in the arrangement of the single pipeline. In solving the parallel pipeline and branch pipeline arrangement problems, the all-around performance of this paper's algorithm is better than that of A*-genetic algorithm and maze-genetic algorithm, respectively. The A*-genetic algorithm of this paper considers the quality of pipeline arrangement and the solution's efficiency. It verifies the adaptability and superiority of the algorithm for the intelligent arrangement of various types of pipelines in ship pipelines.