Near-zero emissions at today?s prices

RINA believes that outstanding performance from the point of safety and environmental protection are today, and will be for several years to come, the two main goals of the innovation in ship science. The Italian classification society says that this has particular relevance for passenger ships for because the number of persons (life) whose safety is at stake is very large and, can be up to 6,000 on a single ship. Passenger ships often trade in pristine environmental areas and there is a growing safety and environmental consciousness among passenger ship operators.

It is for these reasons that the Eureka Project SAFENVSHIP (SAFe and ENVironmental friendly passenger SHIPs) project has been born. The aim of the project is to develop, evaluate and validate (through appropriate demonstrators) a comprehensive approach for the design and operation of passenger ship systems concerned with safety and environmental friendliness.

The project is organised into four main technical teams: Fincantieri, which coordinates the whole project and is the leader of the structural team; RINA, the leader of the safety team; Carnival Services (CCS), the leader of the clean sea team; and Grimaldi Compagnia di Navigazione Napoli (GRIM), the leader of the clean air team.

The project partnership is selected among leading organisations in complementary fields, providing scientific and engineering know-how and skills and includes Safety At Sea, Wärtsilä, Rochem UF, Scanship Environment, the Vienna Model Basin and Marintek.

Expected

achievements

The expected

achievements

of the Safenvship project are:

l From the safety point of view, the technological developments envisaged are the possibility, through tested and validated first principles engineering design tools, to develop design solutions (alternative design), which are more flexible but are presently not acceptable by administrations due to a lack of these tools

l As far as the environmental issues are concerned, the technological development is the transfer of technologies from land based to marine applications. Such a transfer will enable a high level of environmental protection at reasonable cost thanks to the possibility to optimise and integrate, already at an early design stage, such technologies.

One of the aims of the project is zero emissions and Mario Dogliani, RINA?s fire safety subproject leader in the research & product development department, says: “At the end of the project (2004), it will be quite realistic for the simple reason that the emission-reduction technologies we are looking at in the project are already successfully used ashore and we know that they are effective.” He explains to The Motor Ship: “In fact, the challenge of the project is to suitably transfer those technologies from shore to ships, which indeed is not an easy task ? but with a probability of success definitely higher than developing a brand new technology.”

He cites waste incineration as an example where the use of plasma plants (well proven ashore) reduces smoke, particulate matter and dangerous species in the exhaust emissions from incineration. “Here, the problem is not to show that this can be achieved, but to design the plasma plant so that it can be fitted on board and it is efficient and reliable with the garbage profile typical of a cruise ships (a thousand tons of wet wastes per day).”

He says another example is black and grey water, where systems to further treat the treated sewage are proved to be able to result in very limited solid waste, which can be disposed of in an incinerator leaving fresh water, which technically can be easily re-used onboard. This would result in no emissions to sea from black and grey treated water. “It is feasible ? the problem is to study the system to make it compact and so that it does not require a complex piping system ? in other words a system which can be placed on board without significantly increasing the complexity.”

On the question of using new or established technologies, Dogliani says that as far as the environmental part of the project is concerned: “We are looking at existing technologies (although never tested aboard ships),” however, “concerning safety, we are looking at new technologies, mostly design tools that can allow a detailed (although quick enough to cope with the short time allocated to the design in the whole ship construction period) assessment of arrangements and solutions presently never attempted in a ship design.”

On the question of what effect the new fire regulations will have Dogliani says: “This regulation is already applicable (it came into force last July 1).” However, he explains that in the short term (two years): “I believe that there will few applications with rather limited scope for the simple reason that we all (designer, classification society, owner and administrations) are certainly willing to get experience starting from relatively ?simple? cases.” He went on to tell The Motor Ship: “However, in the medium term it may have a big impact ? in certain instances it will be the only technical approach which will allow the designing and building of a ship for 5,000 passengers and 1,500 crew with a safety level equal (or even higher) to that of present cruise ships.”

He says that the scope of this R&D project is to create the conditions to make this step in case a market for such large ships emerges in the future.

Dogliani says: “What we plan to be able to do at the end of the project (large, safe and almost zero emission) could be made today ? however, the cost would be prohibitive (about 30% increase of cost with respect to a present ship with the same number of berths).” He told The Motor Ship: “Our goal is to be able, at the end of the project, to design such a ship without increasing her cost per berth ? indeed a revolution, I would say.”

He concluded by saying: “However, should we not be able to reach this very ambitious goal but ?only? be able to obtain an almost zero emission ship for the same price as today ? it would be a success ? in other words, I would be fairly satisfied by an evolution.”

The objectives

The objectives

from a regulatory point of view are to monitor the development of future standards and requirements and to develop draft marine standards enabling the application on board ships of verified technologies. It is also to update RINA?s rules for environmental friendly passenger ships (clean sea and clean air) and for alternative fire safety and structural design.

From a design point of view, new guidelines, application criteria and standard parameters will enable the application of the new design methodologies based on first principles. New test tools will be developed to enable a quick and reliable application of the new design methodologies. The project also aims to marinise land-based technologies to achieve almost zero emissions for ships. These will be used to update Fincantieri?s early design procedure.

Scope of work

The Safenvship project will be focusing on four main technical areas:

l The definition of constraints which will look at safety, analysis and definition of safety, environmental, operational and design constraints to successfully adopt the functional rather than the prescriptive approach to safety and, to transfer to the passenger ship industry those environmental friendly technologies available to other industrial fields

l Safety issues that will look at the development, evaluation and validation of methodologies and tools for the application of first principles engineering safety analysis in the design of passenger ships. This includes:

l user friendly and validated tools for the application of the alternative fire safety design recently adopted by the IMO (MSC/Circ 1002), in particular for large passenger spaces and for machinery spaces;

l user friendly and validated tools for the application of a full “first principle” assessment of ship structures based on hydroelasticity approach (wave loads, ship motions and structural behaviour);

l development and validation through extensive experimental campaign of a “first principle” weather criterion (effects of extreme wind on ship stability in waves) suitable for the next generation of passenger ships;

l application of simulation techniques for the assessment of people behaviour during evacuation (mustering, embankment and launching of lifeboats) and for the subsequent optimisation of the ship layout and onboard procedures.

l Fire safety will fine-tune the IMO?s general methodology (Guidelines for alternative design). This will involve adapting existing fire and smoke propagation software (such as CFAST and CFD models) so that they can be applied properly and quickly to ship fire risk assessment. The software, developed for civil building applications, are applicable to ships but require considerable skills and resources ? this will likely require development of pre and/or post processors.

To apply the methodology and software to significant case studies and to summarise the experience and knowledge into detailed guidelines for designers.

l The evacuation work is divided into three main activities: mustering; boarding into survival craft; and launching of survival craft. Mustering concerns the development/improvement of both simplified and computerised tools able to model the mustering process with an aim of assessing its applicability to cruise ships (is it already used and required by IMO on roro passenger ships) and the needed improvements.

Boarding aims to develop and improve design tools in order to assess the boarding phase ? for example passenger movement from the muster stations to the survival craft. The final aim is to seek for optimisation of spaces on the embarkation deck.

The final aim is to develop a simulation model for the phase of launching of the craft, which will have to take into account the dynamic interactions of the craft and the ship. This will require a specific tank test to validate the mathematical model.

Structural safety

A structural safety methodology will be implemented to be proposed to IACS by validating existing codes to evaluate since the preliminary phase of the project the hydroelasticity effects such as slamming impacts in way of bow and aft flares with consequent whipping effects on vessel?s shear forces and bending moments.

Weather criterion

A “first principle” weather criterion methodology will also be investigated and proposed to IMO by examining the effects of extreme wind and waves on ship intact stability of the next generation of cruises and ferries.

Clean sea

This will involve the development, evaluation and validation of eco-compatible (clean sea) passenger ship systems including technology transfer from other industrial fields. This will include:

l systems for black and grey water treatment and disposal and their integration with the bilge water treatment system

l waste (food, chemical, dangerous wastes) treatment, recycling and disposal

l on board procedures and checklists for the above systems.

The selected technologies will be tested (demonstrators) through both mock-ups/pilot units and example design applications as appropriate.

Clean air

Development, evaluation and validation of eco-compatible (clean air) passenger ship systems to include systems for:

l power generation with low emissions (NOx, SOx, CO, CO2, particulate, etc)

l waste incineration

l reduced irradiated noise and electromagnetic emissions

l onboard procedure and checklists for the above systems.

The selected technologies will be tested (demonstrators) through both mock-ups/pilot units and example design applications as appropriate.

Synthesis of design

Synthesis of R&D results in terms of:

l draft normative framework suitable for application on passenger ships

l impact on operational practice

l guidelines for early design.