A design expert system for the ship structural design is developed to support inexperienced designers. To establish the knowledge-base, an expert system development shell, Nexpert, is used. Knowledge is extracted from the rules of a classification society of ships, and also from an existing ship structural program that is being used by ship designers. This knowledge is systematized using the objectoriented concept. The design support system is constructed by adding additional functions which are required for the conventional engineering design work. Added functions are; calculation of longitudinal strength, database of existing ship designs, graphical user interface, and visualization of design results. It is observed that visualizing the relationships among the rules, which are activated to draw a certain design decision, is helpful. The system can easily be updated according to changes of the rule books of ship classification societies.