Decarbonizing the Cargo Shipping Fleet

In an effort to combat climate change, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set ambitious goals for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from ships, with a target of at least a 50% reduction of total annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including carbon, from 2008 levels by 2050, with a further goal of zero GHG emissions within this century. Numerous technologies are under development to address these new goals, but the implementation of these new technologies is quite uncertain. Cargo ship owners face the challenge of determining how to best employ and possibly upgrade the current fleet to meet interim goals while awaiting the maturation of future technologies.

MIT Sea Grant Design Lab | J. S. Chalfant, L. Bonfiglio, C. Chryssostomidis
Sponsors | Hightide Foundation and Marsoft, Inc.

Code Overview

This computer code provides a rapid assessment of the impact of various fuel-saving technologies on an existing cargo ship’s fuel consumption, thus providing the ship owner fundamental data indicating which upgrades and practices warrant further, more detailed investigation.

These fuel-saving technologies and practices include:

• slow steaming
• engine modifications
• bulbous bow removal
• propeller optimization
• installation of energy saving devices that modify flow through the propeller

The assessment of a ship’s performance uses a small amount of data readily accessible to the ship owner; the data generally available for candidate vessels is insufficiently detailed to accomplish a full computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis, so various standard estimation methodologies are employed.

Documentation

A user’s guide and explanation of the underlying theory is available for download here.