About Professor Andrews
David Andrews FREng, PhD, FRINA, FIMechE, FRSA was given a new Chair in Engineering Design at University College London in September 2000, following his early retirement as a Director from the UK Ministry of Defence. He joined the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors as a cadet, and spent a career in submarine and ship design and procurement. Appointed to the MoD post of Professor of Naval Architecture at UCL from 1993 to 1998, he was responsible for training and education of MoD, including Royal Navy, post-graduate naval architects. At UCL he set up a new Design Research centre in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, which is focussed on computer aided preliminary ship design, trimaran research, ship combat system integration and design methodology for complex systems. David Andrews is an acknowledged international authority on ship design methodology, with particular reference to naval ship design, including submarine and unconventional vessels, such as Trimaran design. He is the author of the most comprehensive set of published learned papers on Trimaran ship design and was interviewed by the national media on the occasion of the launch of the first Trimaran warship prototype in May 2000.
As Chairman of the tri-annual International Marine Design Conference’s Design Methodology Panel he has edited and been lead author for all the State of the Art Reports on Marine Vehicle Design Methodology (1997, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015). His many papers on ship design have been acknowledged by awards and in written discussions (“ probably the most experienced designer of surface warships in the UK today and, as such, his views … should be treated with great respect, … “; “ should be required reading for all young ship designers due to its exemplary explanation of such a complex process”; “an excellent paper summarising his great experience in ship design”; “.practical and valuable output.. proving him ‘right’ in the long run against earlier scepticism from the profession”). He is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Fellow of Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, for whom he chaired the Membership Committee and the Future Directions Committee and is a Member of Council, the Board of Trustees and Deputy Editor of the IJME. In 2000 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering for his developments in ship design methods. In 2005 he was appointed to the 2008 UK Research Assessment Exercise panel for mechanical, aeronautical and maritime engineering, he was also elected to the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s Peer Review College. In 2008 he was asked to present to the US Navy’s first Ship Design Process Workshop and has attended the following three workshops, uniquely for a non-US citizen. He has conducted technical audits for the Research Council of Norway, the European Commission’ Framework 6, QinetiQ’s Marine Division, Dstl’s Synthetic Environments Reviews and for several industry projects. At the IMDC in Tokyo University May 2015 he was elected Chair of the IMDC International Committee.