Ship Optimisation Yields Significant Fuel Savings
The lines of a 9,000 TEU container ship series were significantly improved in a joint venture of the Chinese design office Maric and Germanischer Lloyd‘s subsidiary FutureShip. As a result of the optimisation, a smaller main engine can be installed – saving fuel and emissions as well. Shipowners Schulte Group (Germany) and Costamare Inc. (Greece) had requested the design review in order to optimise the vessel’s efficiency.
The fuel consumption was reduced by more than 10 % and carbon dioxide emissions are cut by more than 90 t/day. FutureShip’s optimisation procedure generated 15,000 different hull designs and evaluated them numerically. The evaluation was based on computational fluid dynamics, where the flow around the ship is simulated in the computer to determine the actually required propulsion power. The 9,000 TEU container ship series will be built in China, delivery of the first ship is scheduled for 2013.
Model Tests
The most efficient design was compared to the base design in model tests, which were performed in December at the Hamburg Ship Model Basin (HSVA). The optimised model had a significantly lower total resistance than the base design. For the real ship this corresponds to substantial fuel and cost savings per day. The optimisation expenses are amortised within a few days of operation for the series of six ships.
Fine-Tuning
FutureShip is specialised in developing and fine-tuning ship hull forms. The consulting and engineering company, a subsidiary of Germanischer Lloyd (GL), systematically models, varies and analyses many hundreds or thousands of ship designs in an automated process based on a unique parametric approach. Together with the shipowner’s team, key objectives and constraints are identified. FutureShip sets up formal optimisations to explore the design space and to exploit promising options. Finally, FutureShip advises in choosing the best hull form and follows or carries out the associated tank testing. The company offers systematic and formal hydrodynamic optimisation of hull, systematic and formal hydrodynamic optimisation of appendages and surface and skin friction reduction.