Luigi Vitiello

In recent years, research into ships has focused on reducing emissions, consuming less energy, and being more efficient. As a result, the maritime industry has been continuing in a green and sustainable direction. Improving the fuel efficiency of ships and the decarbonization of shipping are important issues to reduce fuel consumption and emitted Greenhouse Gas (GHG) amounts. Decarbonization in the shipping industry could be achieved through technical and operational strategies such as Energy Saving Devices (ESDs) to reduce the fuel consumption of new and existing ships. According to the makers, ESDs can optimize fuel efficiency by up to 15%. This paper reviews the current literature on stern hydrodynamic ESDs, which are mainly used on typical merchant vessels, i.e., bulkers, tankers, and carriers. A comprehensive review is carried out analysing the different available solutions for stern hydrodynamic ESDs, the working principles, the methods used for the design, optimization, and evaluation of the performance improvements, and the relevant issues of these specific ESDs.

Flow structure is a crucial point for the conceptual design of Wing-in-Ground effect (WIG) crafts. In this study, pressure distributions around a compound wing, velocity and the turbulent intensity distribution in the wake area after trailing of the wing, have been investigated numerically. Computational simulations were completed regarding various angles of attack in-ground-effect. Two parts made up the compound wing: The first composed by one rectangular wing in the center, the second composed by a reverse taper wing, consisting of an anhedral angle at the side. A realizable k-ε turbulent model exhibited the flow field in the physical domain about the wing surface. The numerical results of the compound wing were validated using the data provided by wind tunnel tests. The flow structures around the compound wing were compared with that of a rectangular wing for different conditions. It was found that the pressure distribution on the rectangular wing was weaker than at the lower surface for the compound wing. However, the suction effect on the upper surface of the rectangular wing was higher. Also, the velocity defect and the turbulence level in the wake area was greater behind the compound wing.

In the current article, the hydrodynamic forces of single-stepped planing hulls were evaluated by an analytical method and compared against towing tank tests. Using the 2D + T theory, the pressure distribution over the wedge section entering the water and the normal forces acting on the 2D sections have been computed. By integrating the 2D sectional normal forces over the entire wetted length of the vessel, the lift force acting on it has been obtained. Using lift forces as well as the consequence pitch moment, the equilibrium condition for the single-stepped planing hull is found and then resistance, dynamic trim, and the wetted surface are computed. The obtained hydrodynamic results have been compared against the experimental data and it has been observed that the presented mathematical model has reasonable accuracy, in particular, up to Froude number 2.0. Furthermore, this mathematical model can be a useful and fast tool for the stepped hull designers in the early design stage in order to compare the different hull configurations. It should also be noted that the mathematical model has been developed in such a way that it has the potential to model the sweep-back step and transverse the vertical motions of single-stepped planing hulls in future studies.

In light of the International Maritime Organization guidelines, the new Regulation of the European Union urges shipping companies to set up a system for monitoring, reporting and verification of CO₂ emissions based on ship fuel consumption. However, in nowadays market, there is a lack of techniques for fuel consumption monitoring that can be adopted in a real environment. The proposed procedure overcomes the use of Speed–Power curves, which are commonly utilized in the Naval Architecture, by means of a multiple linear regression model that exploits the navigation information usually available in modern ships. This procedure can be used both to alert technical management of a shipping company for anomalous fuel consumption and to quantify the fuel consumption reduction connected with any specific policy adopted to improve energy efficiency. Therefore, this can be particularly profitable for shipping companies and operators in order to claim for carbon credits. The proposed approach is currently implemented by the Energy Saving Technical Department of the Grimaldi Group on a Ro‐Ro Pax ship. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.