Simon Binns, senior naval architect at BMT Defence Services, received the 2008 David Goodrich Prize at the annual general meeting of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects (RINA) held in London on 30 April.
Mr Binns was awarded the prize for Meeting the Current Challenge of Designing High-Capability SSKs, a technical paper he presented at the annual RINA Warships conference, the ninth Naval Submarines event, held in Glasgow, Scotland, in June 2008.
Mr Binns’ paper is based on research and concept options development work he led at BMT Defence Services in Bath in 2007/8. The work undertaken by the multi-disciplinary BMT InSpira project team culminated in the promotion of Vidar-36, a concept design for a large, 3,600t submerged displacement, ocean-going, conventionally powered submarine (SSK).
Mr Binns said: “I feel truly honoured to receive this prestigious award. I think it recognises all the members of my team for the work we did to develop the Vidar-36 design. RINA provides an important channel for us in reporting our technical results so it’s nice to have the hard work we put into preparing our papers recognised.
“We continue to evolve the Vidar SSK concept. It’s very useful as a platform for exploring new options and innovative ideas in a whole boat design environment.”
The prize medal and certificate were presented to Mr Binns by Trevor Blakeley, chief executive of RINA. The prize is awarded in memory of the late David Goodrich, former president of RINA and chairman of BMT.