On-Board Support System for the eco-friendly ship operation in coastal and port areas

Shipping in concerns of eco-friendly and economical efficient operation can be achieved by many different measures. Most of them are technological approaches, e.g. by changing engine control parameters, usage of different fuels, exhaust gas-treatment systems or internal measures to make the engine itself more efficient or eco-friendly. The lost part in this measures is, that there are still humans who are in charge of controlling the vessel and that they should be kept in the loop of efficiency. For numerous vessels, it is neither efficient nor economically reasonable to exchange or enhance the existing power generation or propulsion systems in order to improve efficiency or reduce emissions. Some internal measures even lead to a higher fuel consumption in order to reduce NOx-emissions.Therefore optimal operational procedures for handling ships and specifically the outcome of engine manoeuvres is a substantial source for eco-friendly ship operations. The German research project MEmBran (Modelling Emissions and Fuel Consumption during Ship Manoeuvres) addresses especially the basis for optimising ship engine manoeuvres. It focusses on a very detailed simulation of the processes of currently existing ship diesel engines (in a first step 4-stroke engines) in order to apply them within a more comprehensive ship handling simulation software. As a part of an existing planning and prediction software that can be used on board, it enables the watchkeeping nautical officer and the shipping company to forecast and compare the fuel consumption of the ship for each manoeuvre. It further allows to identify the best option of the ship operator’s possible actions under several conditions and afterwards a comparison of varying manoeuvre strategies of different navigators will be enabled.