engleski

Assessment of the impact of biofilm on the energy efficiency of containerships in the Adriatic Sea

Biofouling attaches at immersed surfaces in between hull cleaning. Containerships are usually fouled with biofilm due to their duty cycle related to high speed and short immobile periods in ports. Fouling with biofilm is commonly neglected during ship operation since it is commonly assumed that it does not affect ship hydrodynamic performance significantly. In this paper, the impact of biofilm on the energy efficiency of the Post Panamax and Post Panamax Plus containership fleets while sailing in the Adriatic Sea is assessed. The investigation is performed for real environmental conditions that a containership can encounter on a typical sailing route passing through the Adriatic Sea. Thus, the impact of waves and wind is taken into account based on mean values of significant wave height and wind speed for containerships sailing at the design speed along the analysed route. The procedure for the assessment of the detrimental effects of biofilm on the energy efficiency of containerships is proposed, and the potential fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions savings related to hull cleaning are determined and discussed. The proposed procedure includes the determination of calm water resistance by the Holtrop and Mennen method, the added resistance in waves by Liu and Papanikolaou’s method and spectral analysis using the Tabain’s spectrum for the Adriatic Sea, the wind resistance by the Blendermann method and added resistance due to biofouling using the Granville method. The obtained results demonstrate the significance of hull cleaning from an environmental point of view indicating the detrimental effects of biofilm.

Energy efficiency ; Containership ; Carbon dioxide emissions ; Added resistance ; Biofilm ; Adriatic Sea

nije evidentirano