Retro-fit solutions for energy efficient shipping

Abstract

With the increase in fuel prices and growing pressure on the marine industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there is a demand for both new and current ships in operation to develop novel ways to reduce their fuel consumption. In January 2013, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) provided mandatory methods on how both new and existing ships will be assessed on their emissions via the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI)and the Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP) respectively. Existing ships are less suitable for major design changes, so they must rely on engine room systems upgrades or the use of retro-fit devices. This research paper presents how the efficiency of an existing tanker hull form could be increased by 10% with the use of cost-effective retro-fit solutions. A method, involving CFD simulations performed using OpenFOAM and validated with wind tunnel tests, is explained. An in-house code, based on the Blade-Element Momentum Theory (BEMT), is used to provide some propeller characteristics: efficiency, torque and thrust coefficients.
Although, the efficiency output from the BEMT code is not the propulsive coefficient, the different appendage configurations may still be directly compared using this efficiency, denoted BEMT throughout this paper. This procedure successfully detects changes in propeller efficiency at model scale due to devices and thus provides a route to investigate a wide variety of devices. Preliminary results highlightes that efficiency gains up to 3% could be obtained with vanes and up to 9% with flow increasing ducts

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Identifiers

ORCID for M.C. James: orcid.org/0000-0002-6964-4598

ORCID for S.R. Turnock: orcid.org/0000-0001-6288-0400

ORCID for D.A. Hudson: orcid.org/0000-0002-2012-6255

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