The Holland Project - Digital Mockup of Naval History
by Gary McCue

John Holland was born in 1841 in Liscannor, Ireland. He was teaching school at the Irish Christian Brothers Monastery in Cork, Ireland when the ironclad Monitor and Merrimack fought to a standstill in 1862. He realized "that the day of wooden walls for vessels of war had passed." He feared that only countries such as England could afford to build iron ships and that countries such as Ireland would have no defense against the iron warship - unless a boat could be made to submerge.

Thirty-five years later, Holland would launch his sixth submarine and a new era of naval warfare would begin. The Holland VI was launched May 17, 1897 and underwent trials in 1898. The submarine performed well, but did not get a favorable report from the Navy Board of Inspection, who reported that she steered like a drunken washerwoman. The Holland Torpedo Boat company agreed to make changes such as moving the propeller forward of the control surfaces to improve the submarine's maneuverability, but the company was out of money. Isaac Rice agreed to provide the funds and in February 1899, the Holland Torpedo Boat Company became a subsidiary of the newly formed Electric Boat Company. The Navy formed another Board of Inspection in November 1899 and re-evaluated the Holland. The Board agreed that the Holland met the specifications laid down by the Navy, but were still reluctant to recommend purchasing the Holland, so the Holland was taken to Washington DC. Following a series of demonstrations on the Potomac River, the Navy purchased the Holland in April 1900. She was commissioned USS Holland the following October, becoming the first submarine in the United States Navy.

Gary began modeling the Holland VI using CATIA Version 3.2.3 and mockup solids in 1992. Over the years, the computer model grew and evolved as Gary uncovered new information on which to base the model and Electric Boat evaluated and/or implemented new CATIA functionality. Today, the Holland exists as 2200 CATIA Version 4 part models, 600 CATIA V5 CATParts, 20 CATIA V5 kinematic CATProducts, numerous CATIA V5 Assembly CATProducts and several DELMIA CATProcesses.

The Holland Project began in December 2001 as a joint project between IBM and Electric Boat. The results of this project were showcased in a joint presentation by Gary McCue of Computer Sciences Corporation, Dan Eldridge of Electric Boat and Ed Popko of IBM at the Spring COE Conference.

Gary began with a short history of John Holland's efforts to develop a practical submarine. This was followed by a virtual tour of this remarkable little vessel and demonstrations of the major systems on board. The tour was created using DELMIA's Digital Process for Manufacturing and included the simultaneous operation of multiple kinematic mechanisms.

Ed Popko provided some insight into the challenges involved in recreating a piece of history including lack of information, drawing errors that became obvious when modeled in 3D, operational issues that became obvious only when kinematics were used, the use of DELMIA DPM to investigate how the vessel was constructed.

The presentation was wrapped up Dan Eldridge who rolled the timeline forward 100 years. He explained how the Holland was used to evaluate new software. He also explained how IBM PLM solutions played a role in re-engineering Electric Boat following the end of the Cold War, the success achieved with the Virginia class program and how Electric Boat is planning for the future.