Development of an intelligent tool for energy efficient and low environment impact shipping

• Main Author: Shao, Wei
• Published: University of Strathclyde 2013
• Subjects: 623.8
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.576445

Ship weather routing was first developed for determining the minimum time of a voyage. However, after 90's, driven by the increasing oil price and the environmental considerations, most shipping companies have began to show more and more interest in minimising fuel consumption in a route, in the meantime, maintaining a certain time schedule which is specified in the chartering contract of a merchant vessel. This topic is the focus of this thesis. A novel three dimensional dynamic programming method (3DDP) has been developed in this research to determine the optimised ship course and its corresponding engine power for minimum fuel consumption. During the optimisation process, Kwon's method as a new empirical formula is used to calculate ship speed in different weather conditions and an IMO guideline is applied to ensure ship safety during a voyage. In addition to the 3DDP method developed, three multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) are also proposed to treat we ather routing as a multi-objective and constrained optimisation problem. Based on ship hydrodynamic knowledge and optimisation algorithms an Intelligent Tool for Energy Efficient and low environment impact Shipping (ITEES) has been developed. ITEES is established by using the object-oriented software development theory, consisting of several independent functional modules. The OPeNDAP as an advanced communication technique is employed by ITEES for downloading deterministic weather forecast at no cost. Case studies are given in Chapter 8 of this thesis to evaluate the performance of the 3DDP method in a comparison with other different optimisation algorithms under different weather conditions. A 54,000 DWT container ship is used as the case ship. The case studies have demonstrated that, in medium sea condition, different route optimisation methods offer the similar results that the shortest route with a constant engine power brings the lowest fuel consumption. However, the results of different route optimisation methods vary significantly in rough sea states. Optimised results are not only just for fuel saving but also, most importantly, for ensuring ship safety during a voyage. Among the optimisation algorithms evaluated by the research, the 3DDP used in ITEES is able to give a better performance for fuel saving than other methods. In addition, it has the characteristics of using straight forward theory and less parameter settings compared with MOEAs that make the ITEES programme easy and convenient for operators to use.