Granted Patent B2

US 12,595,030 · App. 17/917,353 · Granted Apr 7, 2026

Inventors: Tetsuya Kubota (Kobe, JP); Tomoki Kuwabara (Kobe, JP); Yasuyuki Haneda (Kobe, JP); Susumu Ikeda (Kobe, JP); Minoru Yokoyama (Kobe, JP)

Assignee: KAWASAKI JUKOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA

B63B73/20B63B73/40

Abstract

Claims (30)

1 . A hull-mounted installation conversion method comprising:

removing some or all of first-use units from a hull, the first-use units being placed on the hull and constituting a first-use installation; and

placing second-use units on the hull to construct a second-use installation after the removing of the first-use units, wherein

the first-use units include first unit-side connectors, respectively, each of the first unit-side connectors including an interface for an infrastructure required by a corresponding one of the first-use units,

the second-use units include second unit-side connectors, respectively, each of the second unit-side connectors including an interface for an infrastructure required by a corresponding one of the second-use units,

the hull includes first hull-side connectors connectable to the first unit-side connectors, respectively, and second hull-side connectors connectable to the second unit-side connectors, respectively,

the first-use units are classified into different types,

each of the first-use units is a container including an internal configuration corresponding to the type of the first-use unit,

the first unit-side connector of each of the first-use units is at a location on a bottom surface of the first-use unit,

the location of the first unit-side connector differs according to the type of the first-use unit, and

the method further comprises connecting each type of the first-use units to the hull by aligning each respective first unit-side connector, located at a type-specific position on the bottom surface, with a matching location of only one of the first hull-side connectors in a distinct region, thereby establishing type-specific infrastructure connection based on positions of the respective first unit-side connectors relative to the first hull-side connectors.

2 . The hull-mounted installation conversion method according to claim 1 , wherein

the first-use units are medical units, and

the first-use installation is a medical installation.

3 . The hull-mounted installation conversion method according to claim 1 , wherein

the second-use units are medical units, and

the second-use installation is a medical installation.

4 . The hull-mounted installation conversion method according to claim 1 , wherein

the second-use units are classified into different types,

each of the second-use units is a container including an internal configuration corresponding to the type of the second-use unit,

the second unit-side connector of each of the second-use units is at a location on a bottom surface of the second-use unit, and

the location of the second unit-side connector differs according to the type of the second-use unit.

5 . The hull-mounted installation conversion method according to claim 1 , wherein

at least one of the types into which the first-use units are classified and at least one of the types into which the second-use units are classified are the same.

6 . The hull-mounted installation conversion method according to claim 1 , wherein the first-use units and/or the second-use units include a passageway container used as a passageway.

7 . The hull-mounted installation conversion method according to claim 6 , wherein a cable and/or a duct is laid inside the passageway container and along a ceiling or a bottom of the passageway container.

8 . The hull-mounted installation conversion method according to claim 1 , wherein a support base is mounted to at least one of the first-use units and/or at least one of the second-use units.

9 . The hull-mounted installation conversion method according to claim 8 , wherein

the support base includes wheels, and

the wheels are retracted in the support base or removed from the support base when the support base is on the hull.

Assignments (1)

Priority Claims (2)

Continuity (1)

References Cited (10)