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»Technologies for Future Ships and Future Shipping« was the theme of the 13th HIPER Conference, the second such event held in Corona times. Advanced thinkers from research and industry met in Tullamore, Ireland, to look into the crystal ball for our future.[ds_preview]

The larger themes will come as no surprise to the industry: the future will be green(er) and smart(er). But let’s have a closer look at some of the highlights and insights of this year’s HIPER edition. The overall impression was that the glass is half empty, half full. On decarbonizing shipping, we are gaining momentum on a broad front, as demonstrated by many diverse papers, ranging from early concept to first prototype experience. Still, there was a common feeling that we collectively have been off to a late start and, while doing better than some years ago, the decarbonizing train still needs to pick up more steam.

Towards zero carbon

On other environmental topics, notably moving towards more sustainable antifouling solutions, the common thread seems to be weaving the »greener« and »smarter« together, for greener, smarter solutions, reducing emissions to water and air through digital technology. And gone are the days where Artificial Intelligence was science fiction – it has arrived in mainstream applications from design to operation. And at least at HIPER, nobody raised an eyebrow about that. The future has already started, it seems.

notilo robot
Smart meets green: Robots inspect ships for fouling (© Notilo Plus)

The course is clear – towards zero carbon. And we have assorted way points to reach in time. The most recent EEXI and CII targets of IMO dominate the discussion about the imminent future – 2023 is only 15 months ahead.

As in football, the next match is always the hardest. Most ships should manage the EEXI and CII challenges, implementing engine power limitation and better hull management. But 2023 is just the begin of a process and we are well advised to not lose sight of medium and long-term goals. Ships built today shouldn’t perpetuate yesterday’s traditions – we need to start now on designs fit for 2030, with enough flexibility designed in to adapt thereafter on the road to 2050. This will require thinking out of the box, ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and boldly challenging my generation’s common wisdom.

Change is in the air. LNG is but a bridging technology, likely to be largely history for shipping in 2050. »Fuel options for decarbonizing shipping« are multi-colored (green, blue, or even pink) and diverse, with no clear winner to be identified yet. Ammonia and methanol are currently seen by ahead of the competition by a whisker, but don’t write off hydrogen, algae-based biofuels or even nuclear energy yet. Predictions remain difficult and we will have to be resigned to continuous monitoring of markets and technologies. The only certain thing is uncertainty when it comes to shipping fuels of the future, except for two common features: we will need bigger tanks (or accept shorter range) and we will need bigger bucks, as most fuels under discussion now may be 2–3 times as expensive as standard pre-2020 fuels.

KIT foil
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology works on bio-inspired selfadhesive foils, which trap air, reducing frictional resistance and biofouling alike (© KIT)

And with new fuels come new energy converters. The 19th century saw the transition from steam engines (coal) to diesel engines (heavy fuel oil). With new low-carbon and no-carbon fuels, the 21st century will see similarly profound changes in the machinery: Dual-fuel diesel engines for main propulsion, fuel cells and batteries for electric power.

Mining the 30 billion

»The general trend may be summed up by more of everything: more installations and more power in the installations,« in the words of Benjamin Scholz, fuel cell expert at DNV. Many experts at HIPER looked at hybrid systems, combining more than one approach, e.g. diesel-electric systems. When using fuel cells, batteries or even solar panels, electric energy offers unrivalled flexibility in power distribution. Mårten Storbacka, Managing Director of WE Tech Solutions, described it as »key technology when building the future of ultra-efficient and zero-emission shipping«.

While the medium and long-term focus is on alternative fuels, the short-term focus is on improving energy efficiency. Here the second-largest lever, after speed reduction, lies in improved hull management. The Clean Shipping Coalition estimated in an IMO submission that the saving potential for global shipping is a staggering 30 bn $, or 0.3 % of the man-made CO2 emissions. The challenge is to tap into this apparent goldmine, ideally eliminating release of biocides, microplastics and invasive species in ports. A tall order, but not mission impossible, looking at assorted approaches presented at HIPER 2021.

For passive air lubrication, bio-mimicking the mechanism of floating fern (Salvinia) using the possibilities of nano-structured surfaces, the devel-opment has progressed from testing in the Hamburg Ship Model Basin to in-situ testing. »A first test under marine conditions was successfully performed by coating a 15 m research vessel with [our] AIRCOAT foil,« reported Stefan Walheim, project leader for (Bio)functional Nanostructured Surfaces at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. The bio-inspired self-adhesive foils trap air, reducing frictional resistance and biofouling alike.

You may have heard of the silent revolution for antifouling, using ultra-sonic transducers, as presented by Jan Kelling (Hasytec), who received the »Hansa Innovator award« for his work at HIPER 2017. In the four years since then, the technology has been rapidly adopted, mainly for niche areas which are critical for biofouling management and ships that have long idle times. Maybe ultraviolet irradiation as a biocide-free antifouling strategy is at the dawn of a similar success story. The University of Newcastle investigates this approach using thin UV emitters. Research has progressed to studying effects of various parameters (dosage, frequency, etc.), but open questions remain, for example with respect to how robust the emitters are against impacts.

Finally, the solution adopted by the market may follow the theme of »Back to the Future«.

For centuries, shipping has used frequent cleaning as main strategy to fight biofouling. It is only in the second half of the 19th century that biocidal paints started to become the standard an-tifouling solution. It is time to reconsider this approach in the light of robotics. Assorted initiatives by IMO, BIMCO, Jotun, NACE and other key stakeholders indicate that grooming or pro-active cleaning will play a major role in future ship hull management. Robotic drones not only become increasingly affordable, they also become increasingly capable. This year’s Innovator Award winners Solène Guéré and Nicolas Gambini of Notilus Plus present a perfect example of the general trend: Smart meets green. Their Seasam drone uses Artificial Intelligence to inspect the underwater hull condition, identifying type and extent of fouling, se-lecting suitable images of the hull condition and compiling a report within an hour. CMA CGM has been the first major pilot customer, and it looks as if we have another success story in the making here.

Smart use of smart technology

But how will the future smart and green ships be designed? In principle, not very differently from how we design ships today. However, current tools are adapted to reflect technology changes and customer requirements. For example, the flipside of more flexible, hybrid power systems is more complexity, both in design and operation. Here, smarter design technology helps us handling this complexity. Digital Twins of the energy distribution systems enable detailed insight and exploration of unconventional design options. Chara Georgopoulou (DNV) gave an impressive demonstration of this using the COSSMOS (Complex Ship Systems Modelling and Simulation) platform. For an existing VLCC owned by Euronav, operational data was used to virtually explore what alternative fuel-cell based machinery configurations could achieve, finding 18 % points improvement achievable for an optimized configuration. Just one of many examples, where smarter is greener.

And the »Digital Twin« moves from specialists to designer, as simulations continue to get more accessible with pay-as-you-use schemes for software, parallel computing hardware and user-friendly, intuitive software design. Jörg Albrecht (Solarship) with his »Optimization of The Air Circulation in the Design of a Solar Houseboat Catamaran« is a typical example how CFD enters small designer offices, thanks to what Thomas Hildebrandt (Numeca) called the »democratization of CFD«.

Digitalization is not a state, it is a road. We have come a long way, and still make significant progress. The key seems to be a combination of advanced IT skills and knowing who the maritime industry ticks. Matteo Barsotti (IB Marine) brought it to a point: »The road to digitalization is not so simple and has to start from the knowledge and full understand-ing of the subject and the effort (also economical) that will be involved.«

Ingenuity rules, OK?

Covid-19 has put a damper on many activities in the maritime industries, including key fairs and conferences. But where there is a will, there is a way. Blending live presentations on site with video conferencing where necessary, the HIPER conference managed to give us a snapshot of innovations in our industry. It was encouraging to see that the maritime R&D community is vibrant and many steps in the right direction are taken to ensure sustainable business and maritime operations.

The key message was clear: No, we won’t back down! Ingenuity (and not Covid-19) rules, OK? The industry is reinventing itself and its innovative drive is impressive.

The full proceedings of HIPER ‘21 can be downloaded from the website www.hiper-conf.info

Author:
Volker Bertram
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