Last February, MARIN conducted simulations on its Large Motion Simulator to explore the impact of wind propulsion on onboard operations. Using a human-centred design approach, it was evaluated how integrating wind propulsion systems affects daily operations on ships.
The research is part of the Horizon Europe project Optiwise, which aims to develop new holistic design and control methods for innovative ship concepts utilising wind propulsion while considering realistic operational scenarios.
Optiwise builds on R&D already under development among some of the consortium partners in the last years. Promising progress has been made with the introduction of new devices to the market, with some fifteen ships sailing commercially with wind propulsion in the world fleet. However, wind propulsion is so far mostly applied without re-considering the overall ship design and operations. Whereas that fits within a “business as usual” scenario, it does limit the attainable savings.
Energy savings of between 30-50%
The EU call requested solutions for energy savings of at least ten per cent for single measures and twenty per cent for combined measures. By developing and employing holistic design and control methods, Optimise hopes to achieve average energy savings between thirty and fifty per cent when compared to equivalent conventional ships while ensuring operational feasibility in a realistic wind climate.
Rogier Eggers of MARIN: ‘With Optiwise we are re-thinking the design process and energy management of ships with wind propulsion, while still making sure that these ships conform to common operational and regulatory requirements. We thereby expect to enable and showcase much higher savings than what can be seen in the present market applications.’
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Operational use cases
The Optiwise project will further pursue its objectives through close inspection of three operational use cases, which include a bulk carrier with Flettner rotors, a tanker with wing sails and a passenger vessel with an AeroRig system with rigid panels. These cases will provide a relevant sampling of the world fleet, such that the methods developed in the project should be able to cover the majority of the seagoing shipping fleet.
While the wind propulsion type is preselected for each ship type, the exact implementation and change of the ship design and energy management is fully open to further performance enhancement.
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Extensive simulations
The project scope involves extensive simulations where different disciplines, such as aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, routing and energy management are holistically brought together. Great attention will be applied to ensure realistic operational applications of the developed designs. Thus, these will be complemented with basin tests to assess manoeuvring and seakeeping, bridge simulations to assess crew operation, and land-based wind propulsion tests to verify better control.
The project will deliver open guidelines for integrated system optimisation with wind propulsion and smart measurement and control for best operation. The guidelines will be demonstrated in experimental model tests, bridge simulations and measurements on a full scale land based wind propulsion unit.
The project will run for three years, with a budget of 5.1 million euro. Partners working together in this MARIN coordinated project are Core IC, SSPA, AYRO, Chantiers de l’Atlantique, Flikkema Innovation Management & Consultancy, Wärtsilä Netherlands, Università degli Studi di Genova, Euronav, and Anemoi Marine (associated partner using British funding).
Video by MARIN, the picture at the top is a still from the same video.
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