Plans and budget for 2017 were presented to the General Assembly on December 20^th and approved. The description is available for download here, together with minutes from the meeting. Details and further clarifications are still to come, but the general message is that the SFI is consolidating its activities around fewer projects to strengthen cross-disciplinary work and achieve the level of innovation necessary for our industry partners.

Please note the following dates:

• January 13^th: Deadline for financial reporting (detailed information will follow in separate emails)
• March 15-16^th: Network meeting 2017/1, Ålesund

Thank you for your active participation in 2016 and see you all next year in Ålesund!

Updates on R&D activities

WP1 – Feasibility studies

• The paper presented by Dr H-E Lindstad at the SNAME Maritime Convention, Revitalization of short sea shipping through slender, simplified and standardized designs, is now available online.

• A study pros and the cons of installing batteries on offshore support vessels is published by Dr Lindstad et al. The article available online concludes that combining batteries with combustion engines reduces local pollution and climate impact, while the economics with current battery cost and fuel prices is good enough for new vessels, but not good enough for retrofits.

• Further studies from WP1 in 2017 will include a.o. Hybrid power setup in deep sea shipping, and Cost efficiency of 2020 sulphur abatement options.

• The WP will also integrate the GYMIR tool from WP4 in feasibility studies.

WP2 - Hull and Propeller Optimization

Documentation and working papers from WP2 are under progress:

MSc theses from 2016 related to added resistance due to waves are available for consultation:

• Application of Inviscid Flow CFD for prediction of Motions and Added Resistance of Ships (J. Rørvik)

• Hydrodynamic optimization of bulk and tank ship hulls (H. Utby)

2016-2017 MSc students working on Smart Maritime topics have now delivered their project assignments. Their theses will be made available when delivered in June 2017.

• Jens Christoffer Gjølme: Empirical prediction of speed loss

• Anna Karina Magnussen: Prediction of sea margins

• Sigbjørn Wiik: Voluntary speed loss

WP3 - Power Systems and Fuel

• Publications available online.

• Advanced Combustion Control for Alternative Fuels: paper on fuel testing with updated equipment under finalization

• Waste Heat Recovery in Hybrid Systems: Results of simulation of auxiliary/waste heat recovery systems developed to be presented in a conference paper

• Hybrid Power System: Studies on component/system efficiency at variable loads carried out.  Journal paper in progress.

WP4 - Ship system integration / SP 3 Simulation of long-term ship performance

• The main focus so far has been on developing an application for simulation of an integrated ship system, GYMIR - an application for early-stage design assessment, simulating the long-term performance of a ship in realistic operational profiles.

  • Models of different ship sub-systems can be integrated (i.e. Hull and Propulsion models from WP2 and Power System models from WP3)

  • The application is being developed by MARINTEK in cooperation with Vard, Havyard, Rolls-Royce, DNV GL and NTNU

• Results of the test of first version by industry partners will be made available soon. So will be the description and demonstration of the tool. Information webpage dedicated to virtual prototyping is under development (joint activity with the ViProMa project).

• The tool will be further developed through two case studies in 2017 (new SP7), one case with deep-sea ship-owner perspective and one case with offshore ship-designer perspective.

• Increased interest for virtual prototyping: The article on Smart Maritime's work on virtual prototyping in GEMINI has already attracted attention.

WP5 - Environmental and economic due diligence

• The article presented by Dr E. Bouman at SNAME SMC 16 on November 4^th, Life-cycle approaches for bottom-up assessment of environmental impacts of shipping, is now available online.  

• A documentation of the Ship Transport Environmental Assessment Model – STEAM, presented in Værnes in October (see presentation), is under progress.

• Soon the semester projects of the master students at the Industrial Ecology program connected to Smart Maritime will be finished. One study discuss the life-cycle impacts resulting from economies of scale in container ships, and another study investigates the life cycle impacts of hybridizing bulk carriers for deep sea shipping. Both studies model the life-cycle impacts more detailed than currently available in standard life-cycle databases such as Ecoinvent. The studies therefore provide good material for further modelling exercises in 2017. Pending acceptance of submitted abstracts, we plan to present results at the biennial conference of the International  Society for Industrial Ecology at the end of June 2017.

SP1 - Fuels

Exhaust Scrubbing and EGR

• Report from study of washing-water cleaning system is now available for download.

• The report evaluates the wash water quality emitted from the LPG carrier Clipper Harald, at berth in Stenungsund and Kårstø, operating auxiliary engines on HFO. The research team thanks Solvang and Wärtsilä for their collaboration.

• Will soon follow the reports from analysis of EGR and open loop exhaust scrubbing system.

LNG

• Results from exhaust gas measurement performed on two ships (Bergen Viking and With Marine) on pure gas operation are available on the website. The purpose was to establish emission factors (NOx, UHC, CO, CO2 and O2 ) for the main engine in normal operation with a particular focus on the methane slip from the gas engine.

• A first report from analysis of Particulate Matters from test engine at Bergen Engines will be made available soon. The test program will continue in 2017.

• Dual fuel operation:  exhaust gas measurements on board Irland will continue in 2017.

SP2 - Marine Hybrid Power Solutions

• Final report integrating outcome from Task 1 Battery technology and Task 2 Marine hybrid power systems to be delivered in January 2017.

• Paper on marine hybrid systems to be submitted in January 2017 for the OMAE conference in June 2017, by Kevin Koosup Yum.

• Further work on marine hybrid propulsion systems in 2017 will be carried out in WP3 and through the cases planned in SP7 (joint continuation of SP2, 3, 4).

SP4 - Performance in a sea way

• Based on experience from earlier projects and review of current standards, a guideline report on the subject of instrumentation for continuous vessel monitoring, including instrumentation cost estimates and expected accuracy is being finalized. Expected delivery January 16. 2017.

• A report on the state-of-the-art within prediction of added resistance in waves discussing methods spanning from simple empirical formulae to high fidelity methods and model tests will be published before the end of 2016.

• A paper on the subject of the processing full scale monitoring data utilizing data received from one of the project partners is being finalized with the aim of publishing and will be made available soon (conference paper under review).

• Work on the toolbox for full scale data cleaning/filtering and analyses continues. A description of the toolbox development is available on the website.

• Further work on marine hybrid propulsion systems in 2017 will be carried out in WP2 and through the cases planned in SP7 (joint continuation of SP2, 3, 4).

SP6 - Establishing Measurability of Ship Resistance

• Hydrodynamic testing of plates with different roughness at different speed were carried out in the towing tank in December. Frictional resistance of 6 plates with different roughness was measured in the towing tank utilizing automated test techniques. The plates are covered with painting from Jotun. Some photos from the testing are available in the SP6 status report. The report of analysis will be delivered in January 2017.

Smart Maritime MSc Theses

• Available for consultation here

About the Host Institution MARINTEK

• From January 1st 2017, research, laboratories and employees currently linked to MARINTEK, SINTEF Fisheries and Aquaculture and the Department of Environmental Technology at SINTEF Materials and Chemistry will be combined into SINTEF Ocean as an integrated part of the SINTEF Group.

• Read about SINTEF Ocean here

Upcoming events:

Best regards,

Agathe Rialland, on behalf of the SMART MARITIME team.