Wärtsilä unveils new design

Launched at the Posidonia 2014 exhibition in Greece taking place this week, Wärtsilä’s new design emphasises energy efficiency to provide lower operating costs and enhanced environmental performance. It features an optimised hull form to minimise resistance, and an optimised propulsion train with energy saving devices (ESDs) for greater efficiency.

The company says fuel efficiency has been the main focus during the development, and significant testing of the hull lines by both CFD and tank testing have successfully produced what the company calls a “highly competitive design”.

“Our focus is always on lowering operating costs and increasing fuel efficiency, and these elements are clearly evident in the new Aframax design,” said Riku-Pekka Hägg, vice president, Wärtsilä Ship Design.

“In particular, our technology in dual-fuel engines and LNG fuel systems gives us obvious advantages in developing ship designs for gas fuel propulsion,” he added.

The new vessel design is available in three fit-for-purpose versions: the ‘basic’ configuration using conventional HFO fuel, ‘environmental’ with the exhaust emissions cleaned using a scrubber and selective catalyst reduction (SCR), and the ‘green’ version based on dual-fuel engines using LNG. The design can also be adapted for Ice Class notation.

Wärtsilä is also featuring its range of merchant ship designed at Posidonia, which have future trends in vessel design as one of its spotlight themes.