Abstract: Damage location identification is the basis of taking timely action for damage control, and plays an important role in restoring warship survivability. According to the given floatation, nonlinear programming is used to set up an optimization model to calculate the damage location, and the absolute value of righting lever is taken as the objective function, displacement force remaining constant as constraint, and four variables of flooding weight and flooding gravity center as design variables. The damage location can be calculated with this method independent of liquid level detector in liquid tanks in real time. The computation results for the damage location identification of a warship show that this method is practicable and feasible, providing theory basis for captain to identify the ship damage location quickly.