Department

Ship Performance

Assessment and optimization of the operational efficiency of maritime transport depict the key aspect of the Ship Performance department to support the maritime sector in its transition to emission-reduced and emission-free technologies.

Improved efficiency not only reduces fuel consumption and emissions, minimizing the environmental impact directly, but also increases the operational capability of the different available zero- and low-emission technologies regarding the effect of the lower energy density. For this purpose, the department develops tools to assess as well as optimize procedures to increase the operational efficiency from a single ship as well as fleet and traffic management perspective. This includes procedures to improve the operational performance of individual ships in terms of operational profile, speed and weather routing as well as fleet-oriented traffic management considering the current traffic situation and just in time port calls. Hereby, holistic simulation frameworks for the design and assessment of future ship concepts, retrofit solutions as well as real-time decision support systems are addressed. This involves, among other things, environmental data, digital twin concepts, big data analytics, IoT, and AI systems.

Projects

Research project

MISSION

The MISSION project aims to digitalise important information on time stamps of operations and make them available in real time for stakeholders in the maritime sector to enhance maritime efficiency and safety and protect people's health by decreasing port traffic, associated costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

Wave Identification and Prediction from Marine Radar

Even if modern methods can theoretically provide precise 'wave-by-wave' forecasts of the sea surface around the ship, more efficient algorithms are needed to fulfill the constraint of real-time computations. Such accelerated modeling and simulation methods are being developed in projects like PASch and EMESS.

Research project

Utilisation and Storage of Wind Energy in Maritime Transport

Together with the Helmholtz Centre Hereon, the institute conducted a feasibility study in the research project Hyro with the aim of using sails as the main propulsion system for maritime vessels. Energy recuperation and hydrogen storage were integrated into the propulsion system to ensure that transport is as climate-neutral and energy self-sufficient as possible.

Contact

Dr. Marco Klein

Head of Department
German Aerospace Center
Institute of Maritime Energy Systems
Ship Performance
Düneberger Str. 108, 21502 Geesthacht
Germany