Submitted by Lt. Jonathan Duffett, Office of Design & Engineering Standards, Naval Architecture Division

The Ship Structure Committee (SSC) announced the beginning of the 2018 Project Year. The SSC is comprised of ten agencies that coordinate resources to fund ground-breaking research into improving ship structures, with the mission to eliminate all ship structural failures. The SSC relies on ideas submitted by its partners in order to ensure the research funded is current, necessary, and impactful. As such, the SSC is looking forward to your insightful ideas and enthusiasm toward another successful year of improving the safety of life at sea through ship structures related projects. The SSC typically funds one or two projects each year (approximately $100k per project).

The SSC is seeking research ideas that fall within these four focus areas:

1. Structural Lifetime Extension
2. Arctic Construction, Operations, Technologies, and Effects
3. Composite Materials
4. SSC Follow-Up Report

Due to limited funding, the Committee will only consider ideas that fall within one of the four focus areas above. All submissions much reach the SSC Executive Director, Lt. Jonathan Duffett, via email by Feb. 28, 2018.

Submittal Instructions:

* Use the template/outline format found on SSC’s website
* Do not include proprietary information
* Only MS Word Document (.doc, .docx) format will be accepted
* Do not include any graphics, tables, or sketches
* Keep the task descriptions brief – entire document should not exceed 4 pages

The compiled research recommendations will be distributed to the SSC members for evaluation after the due date . The Committee will establish the FY18 TOP TEN when it meets in late March 2018. The selected projects should begin the contracting phase in June 2018.

For more information and example submissions, visit the SSC’s website, or contact Lt. Jonathan Duffett.

This blog is not a replacement or substitute for the formal posting of regulations and updates or existing processes for receiving formal feedback of the same. Links provided on this blog will direct the reader to official source documents, such as the Federal Register, Homeport and the Code of Federal Regulations. These documents remain the official source for regulatory information published by the Coast Guard.