SAWE Technical Forum: WEIGH - Weight Estimating in Great Haste
March 25, 2022

Facilitated by:

Manuela Bucci Naval Architect MSc CEng MRina Tymor Marine Limited	John Nakai Senior Engineering Specialist The Aerospace Corporation

As mass properties engineers, we must periodically verify the predicted or standardized mass properties of a vehicle, vessel, or other item by measurement. We must:

· inspect and inventory what is or is not on the vehicle, vessel, or item to be measured

· correlate the as-measured configuration to the predicted (or a standard) configuration

· obtain, measure, or estimate the relevant mass properties of the items that differ between the predicted or standard configuration and the as-measured configuration

· perform the measurement tests and collect data

· compute final mass properties results from the predicted, measured, and estimated data collected

Often, we face very limited time and other resources to perform the above processes.

· Maritime Weight Engineers often must make on-the-spot weight estimates of onboard or missing items during ship inspections

· This situation may also be encountered by mass properties engineers in other construction and transportation industries

This forum will explore strategies and practices in optimizing on-the-spot weight estimates during an inspection, when only visual observation and very limited data about any item are available on site due to time and resource constraints.

· This type of weight estimating will be compared to weight estimating during various stages of design, where databases are accessible.

· The importance of the number of items to be estimated to achieve acceptable overall weight accuracy will be also discussed.

The forum’s leaders are interested in discussing practices, tips, and shared experiences for this type of weight estimation among the participants.