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COMPUTER-BASED DESIGN TOOL FOR A FUEL EFFICIENT -LOW EMISSIONS

MARINE PROPULSION PLANT

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 COMPUTER-BASED DESIGN TOOL FOR A FUEL EFFICIENT - LOW EMISSIONS
MARINE PROPULSION PLANT

Marco Altosole, Michela Borlenghi, Marco Capasso, Massimo Figari.

Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering Department (DINAV),
University of Genoa, Via Montallegro 1, 16145 Genova, Italy

The fuel oil consumption represents one of the most important sources of ship generated air pollution (NOx,
SOx and CO2) and at the same time it represents one of the biggest ship’s running costs. The latter element
has ever trusted marine engineers to design ship energetic systems in terms of the fuel consumption
minimization but generally with low priority. Recently the rapid increase of bunker costs and the high concern
with respect to air pollution increased the motivation for a tight control of ship energetic requirements.
A numerical code, developed in MATLAB environment, is herein presented. The code can be effectively used
as a design tool to identify the engine-propeller matching of minimum fuel consumption and minimum exhaust
emissions. Furthermore the code can be used during the ship operation for the condition monitoring of the
ship propulsion system in order to avoid or minimise the decrease of ship performance with the age.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 SERVICE PERFORMANCE PREDICTION

The fuel oil consumption represents one of the most The performance prediction of the ship during its service
important sources of ship generated air pollution (NOx, is primarily affected by the performance of the whole
SOx and CO2) and at the same time it represents one of propulsion system.
the higher ship’s running costs. The latter element has Furthermore the ship performance is strongly affected by
ever trusted marine engineers to design ship energetic a number of factors that are difficult to account for:
systems (propulsion plant, electric generation plant and • Weather conditions.
auxiliary systems) in terms of fuel consumption • Hull and propeller roughness and fouling.
minimization but generally this aspect has been pursued • Loading conditions.
with low priority. At the design stage, the main interest of the designer is
Recently the rapid increase of bunker costs and the high the proper selection of the propulsion system
concern with respect to air pollution increased the components. Generally the customer requirement is the
motivation for a tight control of ship energetic ship service speed. The minimum consumption
requirements. requirement not very often is explicitly required but it is
For the majority of merchant vessels the fuel oil generally expected as good engineering practice.
consumption is mainly related to the ship propulsion. Unfortunately the evaluation of the minimum fuel
The fuel consumption of a marine propulsion plant consumption often requires long calculations not easy to
strongly depends on initial design choices, one of the assess.
most important is the proper matching of the propulsion In case of fixed pitch propellers driven by 2 stroke diesel
configuration: engine(s), gearbox and propeller. engines the minimum fuel consumption, for a given ship
At the same time also the service management of the speed, can be obtained by several combinations of
ship plays a crucial role for the energy consumption. In engines and propellers.
fact fouling and surface deterioration of hull and In the case of a vessel with several operating conditions,
propeller may significantly increase the required power the best benefits can be obtained by the capabilities of
while insufficient machinery maintenance may impair CP propellers. As well known, CP propeller has infinite
the delivered power and increase the specific fuel possible Pitch/Rpm combinations for a given thrust
consumption of the engine. requirement: the final choice is made taking into account
The paper is focussed on the engine-propeller matching the machinery working constraints and the maximum
problem and its solution in terms of minimum fuel efficiency of engine and propeller.
consumption and minimum exhaust emissions through Unfortunately, the minimum specific fuel consumption
the entire ship speed range. of the engine and the minimum brake power required by
For the purpose a code has been developed and tested the propeller generally do not match the same
using service records of a large cruise ferry operated in operational point. Only through the calculation of the
the Mediterranean short sea shipping trade. fuel flow rate the optimal operational condition can be
matched. savings point of view. The corresponding shaft speed
A design tool is useful to assess the large amount of can be read from the iso pitch lines of Figure 4.
computations required to find the engine-propeller Another important feature of the program is the
matching of minimum fuel consumption and exhaust capability to determine cavitation limit through the
emissions. calculation of coefficients σ and τ.
For a ship operator the main interest is the optimal use The main mathematical procedure is shown in Figure 5.
(minimum total consumption) of the ship propulsion Only the main routines and one of the most significant
system for each route and for each displacement. This graphical outputs have been reported.
requires a service performance prediction methodology
able to account for the most important factors, i.e.:
displacement, weather, hull and propeller surface 4 SERVICE EXHAUST EMISSIONS
condition.
For the society as a whole the main interest is to have a Air pollutants cause a range of adverse health and
sustainable waterborne mean of transport that means to welfare effects, especially in terms of respiratory
have the minimum energy requirement per unit of weight impairment and related illnesses and visibility
[1, 2, 3] and the minimum exhaust emissions. impairment.
®
A numerical code, developed in MATLAB Urban strategies for the environmental protection have to
environment, is herein presented. The inputs of the face with the reduction of emissions caused by industry,
program are the ship resistance, the gear ratio, the domestic heating, vehicles and also by ships. Especially
propeller and the engine characteristics. The available in harbour towns during particular meteorological
outputs are useful for the determination of the best conditions, pollution caused by exhaust gas of the ship’s
Pitch/Rpm combinator relationship with respect to total machinery are becoming a serious concern. Ship’s
fuel consumption and exhaust emissions in different engines are often very old, if compared with other
operating conditions. transport means, and the periodic check of their energetic
efficiency and emission is not compulsory.
Road vehicles as cars are equipped with catalytic
3 SERVICE PERFORMANCE CODE silencer since the end of ’80 and periodically the
emissions are checked by the authority. Furthermore
The code, developed in MATLAB® environment, is able international and national rules force the producers to the
to draw the proper matching between engine and CP reduction of the engine pollution level, presently
propeller, identifying the most efficient Pitch and Rpm quantified in terms of gas mass per kilometre (is to note
combination for a given operating condition of the that in the past limits were in percentage of the exhaust
vessel. The Pitch/Rpm combination can be optimised gas mass) with the aim to reward the correct
taking into account the propeller efficiency but also dimensioning of the engine installed respect to the
considering the engine efficiency. These two design vehicle purpose.
criteria do not always carry out the same results. The With the aim to bridge the above mentioned gap also the
objective of the program is to identify the proper International Maritime Organization introduced the
Pitch/Rpm relationship on the base of the fuel Annex VI of MARPOL 73/78 “Regulation for the
consumption minimisation. Prevention of Air Pollution from ships”. The Annex VI
The main inputs of the calculation methodology are the forces engine manufacturers to cap the NOx emissions
ship resistance for a given operating condition, the and forces ship owners to use low sulphur fuels.
propeller open water characteristics for different blade Recently IMO started the discussion about the CO2
positions, the engine fuel map. Other important inputs emissions related to the introduction of Kyoto Protocol
are the wake and the thrust deduction factors, the relative [6].
rotative efficiency of the propeller and the mechanical The demand of an effective tool, able to evaluate the
efficiency of the shaft line. energetic efficiency of the on board machinery and make
The propeller open water curves and the ship resistance an estimate of pollutant gasses, has driven the authors to
are combined, by means of the well known variable kt/J2, set up a model, developed in MATLAB® language, able
in order to achieve the propeller power curves as shown to provide the following output data:
in Fig.1, where the required power is plotted versus • Amount of pollutants produced by the propulsion
engine speed as lines at constant P/D and ship speed. machinery of a ship during a trip.
Overlaying the engine load diagram and multiplying the • Amount of pollutants produced by auxiliary
propeller speed by the reduction gear ratio, it is possible machinery during the harbour stops.
to obtain the matching diagram between propeller and • Possible combination of the previous situations.
engine (Fig 2). • Propulsion and auxiliaries energetic efficiency
Once the engine fuel map is known, the code is able to calculation.
calculate the fuel consumption flow for each P/D and To succeed in foreseeing the specific emission it is
ship speed, in order to plot the diagram in Fig.3. necessary a complete database of emission
The diagram suggests useful information about the measurements carried out on the main engines during
selection of the “optimum” propeller pitch from the fuel voyages scheduled as normal service (manoeuvres
included) and on the auxiliary during a short harbour Beside this, an appropriate processing taking into
stop and during the trip. account the exhaust gasses pressure, temperature and
Because of high cost of an on board measurement flow rate has provided the amount of the pollutants
campaign the authors have been based on the data found compounds in terms of g*kWh-1.
in literature. D. A. Cooper [4] carried out exhaust “Specific emission” means the ratio between the amount
emission measurements on-board three high-speed (mass) of each exhaust gas compound and the power
passenger ferries during normal service route. Ship A delivered by the engine at fixed speed.
was powered by conventional medium-speed marine The adopted assumptions neglect the influence of other
diesel engines (MEs), ship B by gas turbine engines and parameters on the combustion process such as the
ship C by conventional medium-speed marine diesel air/fuel ratio and the chemical fuel composition.
engines equipped with selective catalytic reduction The adopted model considers the engine delivered power
(SCR) systems for NOx abatement. as the main parameter to be taken into account for the
All ships had similar diesel auxiliary engines for emissions calculation.
generating electric power. Real-world emission factors Table 1 contains the specific emission factors considered
of NOx, SO2, CO, CO2, NMVOC, CH4, N2O, NH3, PM in the emission model.
and PAH at steady-state engine loads and for complete
voyages were determined together with an estimate of
Table 1 – Specific emission factors
annual emissions.
Also the exhaust emissions from ships at berth were Emission Factors [g/kWh]
covered by Cooper’s work [5]. Emission measurements Load 50% Load 90%
were carried out on board six ships at berth during NOx 14.6 11.7
normal real-world operation (hotelling, unloading and CO 0.72 0.44
loading activities). The study included three passenger CO2 688 671
ferries, one transoceanic container/ro-ro, one VOC 0.14 0.23
transoceanic car/truck carrier and one chemical tanker. PM 0.29 0.10
Emissions were measured from 22 auxiliary engines
(AEs, medium and high-speed marine diesels) covering
seven engine models and ranging in size from 720 to
5 CODE VALIDATION
2675 kW maximum output.
Cooper’s work carries out pollutant measurements in
The service performance code has been tested with the
two engine load conditions: 90% of the power for the
service data collected on a specific Ro-Ro Pax vessel. A
main engine and 53% of the power for the auxiliary
number of voyages have been simulated by the code and
engine.
results have been compared with the measured data.
Quantities are provided in various units depending on the
The ship resistance used for the calculations comes from
instrument adopted as follow:
the towing tank tests. The towing tank tests were
- NOx (ppm);
available for two different displacements corresponding
- NO (ppm);
to the minimum and the maximum loading conditions.
- NO2 (ppm);
For any specific displacement of the ship, the resistance
- CO (ppm);
is calculated as a linear interpolation between the two
- CO2 (vol %);
known curves.
- PM (mg/m3).
The vessel is equipped with two 4-bladed CP-propellers.
In order to adapt all the data available in literature to the
The code needs the propeller open water characteristics
calculation procedure developed by the authors, some
for different blade positions in order to assess the
assumptions have been made.
performance prediction. These data were not made
The main assumption is that engines having similar
available by the manufacturer and it was necessary to
characteristics (i.e. medium speed marine diesel engine
model the propeller characteristic by a systematical
of different manufacturers and different size) have also
series, specific for CP propellers (Yazaki). The series
similar specific emission in atmosphere. Adding other
data sheets contain open water characteristics for a wide
two hypothesis it is possible to complete the whole
range of blade position to 10 from -25 degrees. The
calculation procedure:
systematic series data were calibrated by the comparison
- Specific emission of pollutants (expressed in g*kWh-1)
with the open water characteristics corresponding to the
depends on the % of load only;
design pitch, available from self propulsion tests.
- Specific emission of pollutants (expressed in g*kWh-1)
The main diesel engines of the ship were modelled by
have a linear behaviour respect to the % of load.
the specific fuel oil consumption curves and by the
Assuming the above mentioned simplifications it is
power limit curve, provided by the engine manufacturer.
possible to calculate all the intermediate values of the
The simulation results have been compared with the data
specific emission between 53% and 90% of machinery
of the examined ship for two different service periods:
load both for the main engines and for the auxiliary
before and after the ship dry dock, as shown in Table 2
engines.
and Table 3.
The service data of the ship were collected in two ways: All ships have medium speed, four stroke, marine diesel
by the analysis of a large amount of the weekly ship engines and only in one case the propulsion machinery
reports, related of ship use during a period of about three are composed by a combined diesel + gas turbine system
years, and by direct measure onboard the ship during (CODAG).
some voyages. For each ship the following data are considered:
The weekly reports contain information about the length • Propulsion power;
of the ship journey, the weather conditions, the • Electric power;
displacement, the average speed, the average propulsion • Service speed;
power and the fuel oil consumption of the main engines. • Main engines specific consumption;
For the code validation only data related to good weather • Auxiliary engines specific consumption;
conditions were used. • Main engines % of load at sea;
The results of the simulation of 15 voyages are reported
• Auxiliary engines % of load at sea;
in Table 2 and Table 3. In the same tables the
• Auxiliary engine % of load at berth.
corresponding measured data are reported too, for
To estimate the exhaust emissions in port two different
comparison. Table 2 contains data related to voyages
operating conditions have been modelled: 1 generator in
before the last dry-docking, Table 3 contains data related
service at 90% of the load and 2 generators in service at
to voyages after the last dry-docking.
53% of the load. To have an idea of the potentiality of
As shown in Table 3 the differences between calculated
the calculation method some layout quantities are shown
and measured data in terms of power and fuel oil
in Figure 6.
consumption resulted very low, about 2% - 3%. In this
Average values of NOx, SO2, CO2, PM, VOC and CO
case study, after the dry dock, the ship resistance used
each pollutant are evaluated for the two working
for the calculations was the resistance coming from the
conditions at berth.
towing tank tests.
As expected, the analysis of the histograms highlights
In order to compare the power and the fuel oil
that the usual ship condition, with 2 generators in use at
consumption simulation results with the service data for
berth, gives a worse environmental behaviour with
the period before the dry dock it was necessary to
respect to 1 generator in use at higher load.
increase the towing tank resistance of about the 20%. It
Anyway the wide range of possible working conditions
was a crude estimation of the hull and propeller fouling
make the numerical tool a valuable way for a correct
effects.
exhaust emission assessment.
As shown in the Table 2, in the studied case before the
ship dry dock, the differences between the calculated and
the measured power (with the modified resistance)
7 CONCLUSIONS
resulted also reasonable 5% -10%. Approximately the
same results were obtained for what concerns the
calculated and the measured fuel oil consumption A method for the prediction of the ship in-service
(difference about 5%). propulsion performance is presented. A numerical tool
The differences may arise from several sources: model able to predict and optimise ship propulsion performance
uncertainties, as described in the previous sessions, and in terms of fuel consumption and exhaust emissions has
measure accuracy. been developed. Fifteen voyages have been simulated
The measure of the power was performed by the and results compared with in-service measurements
permanently installed shaft torque meter; the fuel oil obtaining good accuracy.
consumption of the main engines was performed by the The code can be effectively used as a design tool to
flow meter, permanently installed on the main engines identify the engine-propeller matching of minimum fuel
fuel oil feed line. Unfortunately the accuracy of these consumption and minimum exhaust emissions.
devices was not available so it is an unknown part of the Furthermore the code can be used during the ship
differences between calculated and measured data. operation for the condition monitoring of the ship
propulsion system in order to avoid or minimise the
decrease of ship performance with the age.
6 EXHAUST EMISSIONS ASSESSMENT
AKNOWLEDGMENTS
The exhaust emission assessment, available as an output
of the service performance code, is not yet validated due
to the lack of data from ships in service. This work has been supported by Fondazione CARIGE,
The study presented in this section describes the Genova, Italy; Contract DINAV-Fondazione CARIGE
usefulness of this kind of assessment from the point of dated 27/10/2005.
view of minimisation of fuel consumption and exhaust The authors wish to thank all the staff of Grandi Navi
emissions of the ships in port. Veloci (www.gnv.it), Genova, Italy for the support
The study considers 25 existing ro/ro ferry ships from received during the work.
DINAV data base. The aim is to identify average values
of emissions of ferry ships in port.
REFERENCES [5] COOPER D. A., “Exhaust emissions from ships at
berth”, Elsevier, Atmospheric Environment 37 (2003)
[1] Figari M., Borlenghi M., 13-15 April 2005. 3817 – 3830.
'Environmental Protection Class Notations for ships [6] Cazzulo R., “Voluntary indexing of ship CO2
and their application to RO-RO ferries and Passenger emissions”, TTM magazine, n. 1/2007,
ships', ENSUS 2005. www.ttmmagazineonline.com.
[2] Benvenuto G., Borlenghi M., Figari M., 19-21
September 2005. 'Competitive and Sustainable Short
Sea Shipping: optimisation of environmental
performances of RO/RO-PAX ferries', ICMRT05,
Ischia (NA), Italy
[3] Benvenuto G., Borlenghi M., Figari, B. Dionisi,
2006, Environmental performance optimisation of a
Ro/Ro-Pax ferries fleet, ICHD 2006, Ischia (NA), Italy
[4] COOPER D. A., “Exhaust emissions from high speed
passenger ferries”, Elsevier, Atmospheric Environment
35 (2001) 4189 – 4200.

Fig. 1: Propeller performance prediction curves

Fig. 2: Matching diagram between propeller and engine

Fig. 3: Fuel consumption for each P/D and ship speed

Fig. 4: Ship speed curves vs shaft speed for various pitch values

Fig. 5: Mathematical procedure developed by MATLAB®

 Fig. 6: Amount of pollutant for different working conditions at berth (1 el. generator working, 2 el. generator working)

Table 2: Simulation results compared with the on board measured data before dry dock

Table 3: Simulation results compared with the on board measured data after dry dock

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