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Contents

President’s Message 5

SNAMES Council Members 2009/2010 6

Past Presidents of SONAS/SNAMES 7

Report 2008/2009

General Brief & Committee Report 10

Special Report: Singapore Pavilions Led by SNAMES 14

Brief Report on PAAMES 18

SNAMES Main Activities – Photo Section 19

Report on Chua Chor Teck Memorial Lecture 2008 & 2009 28

Strategic Papers

Navigating Stormy Waters 32

The Cause of the Present Shipping Market Downturn 36

Innovation in HRM 46

Technical Papers

Marine Emissions: Issues, Challenges and Potential Solutions 50

Structural Health Monitoring of a Skidding Truss Using 58 Vibrating Wire Strain Gauge

New IMO Requirements for Coating of Ballast Water Tanks: 64Challenges and Solutions

Design and Construction of Icebreakers for Operation 69in Barents Sea

Keeping Records and Calibration 77

“Diesel Pest”: A New Disease? 81

Fibre Rope Deployment System 86

Service Experience: MAN B&W Engines 96

Using Mathematical Modelling Technique to Enhance 106Engine Room Simulation Training and Assessment

Nominal Roll 113

Editor’s Note 116

Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers Singapore31st Annual Journal 2009/2010

Publication Committee

Low Kok Chiang

Anis Hussain

Charles Fernandez

Joan Chua

SNAMES Secretariat Address

205 Henderson Road

#03-01 Henderson Industrial Park

Singapore 159549

Tel: +65 6858 5846

Fax: +65 6725 8474

Email: [email protected]

www.snames.org.sg

MICA (P) 127/01/2010

ISSN 2010-099X

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Steering Towards Sustainability and Growth | 5

Dear Members

The past year has been an eventful and challenging one for the maritime industry. Despite a harsh economy, the maritime and offshore industries remain resilient and well prepared for an upturn. Ships will always be required to transport raw materials and export manufactured goods. Offshore exploration and production remain strong.

Good times or bad, increasingly stringent environmental and safety standards push the industry to keep relevant, develop better technologies and advance operations. Naval architects and marine engineers continue to play a crucial role in helping the industry meet its myriad challenges.

With this in mind, you would be pleased to know that SNAMES had a busy year furthering the professional development of our members. We organised several technical talks including the Chua Chor Teck Memorial Lecture series, industry nights, and participated in overseas exhibitions and conferences. A broad range of topics was covered at these touch points, from marine equipment systems to the global offshore vessel industry. On the social front, we successfully held the SNAMES Golf Tournament as well as our Annual Dinner at the Grand Copthorne Hotel.

As part of our efforts to champion our profession and our members’ expertise, we have been active in various industry committees, working groups and even

President’s Message

assisted in the delivery of technical subjects in academic courses. These include the Work, Safety and Health (Marine Industry) Committee (Shipyards) organised by the Ministry of Manpower; the Technical Committee for Bunkering and the Working Group for Mass Flow Metering for Bunker Delivery (both by SPRING Singapore) and the SeaAsia 2011 Technical Committee (by Seatrade) to name a few.

Moving forward, 2010 will be an important and exciting year for the society. In addition to the numerous educational talks and social events for members, SNAMES will host the 4th Pan Asian Association of Maritime Engineering Societies (PAAMES) Advanced Maritime Engineering Conference (AMEC). To be held in December 2010, it marks the first time that SNAMES will be organising such a prominent international maritime conference.

On behalf of the SNAMES Council, I wish to thank you for the support you have given us in the past year. I hope you will join the society in embracing the opportunities that 2010 brings.

Thank you.

Kenneth KeePresidentSNAMES Council 2009/2010

6 | SNAMES 31st Annual Journal 2009/2010

Council Members 2009/2010

Kenneth KeePresident

David KinradeVice President

Simon KuikHonorary Treasurer

Chia YujinHonorary Secretary

David SeowChairman

Activities Committee

Foo Siang-EChairman

Awareness Committee

Low Kok ChiangChairman


Anis Altaf HussainChairman

Technology Committee

Au Yeong Kin HoWebmaster

Chandru S RajwaniCouncil Member

Chen Chin KwangCouncil Member

Yeo Teck ChyeCouncil Member

Koh Shu YongCouncil Member

Kent FongCouncil Member

Christopher HooCouncil Member

Joan ChuaExecutive Secretary

Secretariat


SOCIETy OF NAVAL ARCHITECTS SINGAPORE (SONAS)

Year President Vice-President1973/1974 Mr Tan Kim Chuang Mr Keki R Vesuna1974/1975 Mr Tan Kim Chuang Mr Ho Ming yeh Mr Ho Ming yeh Mr Keki R Vesuna1975/1976 Mr Chua Chor Teck Mr Alan Bragassam1976/1977 Mr Chua Chor Teck Mr Kalman E Nagy1977/1978 Mr Chua Chor Teck Mr Alan Bragassam1978/1979 Mr Chua Chor Teck Mr Alan Bragassam1979/1980 Mr Chua Chor Teck Mr Tan Kim Chuang1980/1981 Mr Chung Chee Kit Mr Lim Boon Heng

SOCIETy OF NAVAL ARCHITECTS AND MARINE ENGINEERS SINGAPORE (SNAMES)

Year President Vice-President1981/1982 Mr Cheng Huang Leng Mr Choo Chiau Beng1982/1983 Mr Cheng Huang Leng Mr Choo Chiau Beng1983/1984 Mr Choo Chiau Beng Mr Ronald M Pereira1984/1985 Mr Ronald M Pereira Mr Tay Kim Hock1985/1986 Mr Choo Chiau Beng Mr Charlie Foo1986/1987 Mr Choo Chiau Beng Mr Charlie Foo1987/1988 Mr Charlie Foo Mr Toh Ho Tay1988/1989 Mr Toh Ho Tay Mr Teh Kong Leong1989/1990 Mr Teh Kong Leong Mr Loke Ho yong1990/1991 Mr Loke Ho yong Mr Dennis Oei1991/1992 Mr Dennis Oei Mr Goh Choon Chiang Mr Goh Choon Chiang Mr Wong Kin Hoong1992/1993 Mr Tan Kim Pong Mr Zafrul Alam1993/1994 Mr Zafrul Alam Mr Ng Thiam Poh1994/1995 Mr Ng Thiam Poh Mr Dennis Oei 1995/1996 Mr Dennis Oei Mr Kan Seng Chut1996/1997 Mr Kan Seng Chut Mr James Tan1997/1998 Mr James Tan Mr Phua Cheng Tar1998/1999 Mr Phua Cheng Tar Mr Leslie Low1999/2000 Mr Leslie Low Mr Wong Kin Hoong2000/2001 Mr Wong Kin Hoong Mr Leow Ban Tat2001/2002 Mr Leow Ban Tat Mr ying Hing Leong2002/2003 Mr ying Hing Leong Mr Tan Chor Hiong2003/2004 Mr Tan Chor Hiong Mr Dennis Chua2004/2005 Mr Dennis Chua Mr Ernest Wee2005/2006 Mr Ernest Wee Mr Fabian Chew2006/2007 Mr Fabian Chew Mr Goh Boon Guan2007/2008 Mr Goh Boon Guan Mr Chen Chin Kwang2008/2009 Mr Chen Chin Kwang Mr Simon Kuik

Past Presidents of SONAS/SNAMES 1973-2009

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Report 2008/2009


Based on the Council Report 2008/2009 presented at the 37th SNAMES Annual General Meeting (AGM), the followings feature the main SNAMES developments, programmes and activities that took place in 2008/2009.

SNAMES VISION

The underpinning vision of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers Singapore (SNAMES) is to “be the most admired, respected and responsible society of people in the maritime industry of Singapore”.

SNAMES GENERAL STRATEGy

SNAMES adopts a multi-prong approach as its core general strategy for growth. They are:

Approach1 Create a growing SNAMES membership and council2 Manage SNAMES assets and operating costs

effectively3 Promote networking events, e.g. Annual Dinner and

Annual Golf Tournament4 Publish Annual Journal and other relevant

publications5 Organise technical talks6 Encourage students’ participation in SNAMES’

selected events7 Conduct Chua Chor Teck Memorial Lecture8 Pursue and strengthen relationships with Singapore

and overseas-based organisations9 Participate in joint activities with other organisations

with maritime visits and goals10 Better communications through website and Vnet

SNAMES’ FACTORS OF GROWTH

SNAMES’ steady growth over the years can be attributed to an array of factors, namely:

Growth Factors1 Database membership2 Junior membership3 Provision of technical leadership4 Active social interaction5 Exciting and relevant public forums6 Proactive communications7 Close working relationship with tertiary institutions8 Good relationships with individual and corporate

sponsors and supporters9 New programmes developed to cater to emerging

trends and needs of members10 Effective fees management

SNAMES COUNCIL MEMBERS 2008/2009

SNAMES would like to recognise and appreciate the Council Members who served in the SNAMES Council 2008/2009:

President Chen Chin KwangVice President Simon KuikHonorary Treasurer Kent FongHonorary Secretary Chia yujinActivities Chairman David SeowAwareness Chairman Foo Siang-EPublication Chairman Low Kok ChiangTechnology Chairman Anis HussainWebsite Chairman Au yeong Kin HoCouncil Member Dave KinradeCouncil Member Ron PereiraCouncil Member Teh Kong LeongExecutive Secretary Joan Chua

Report 2008/2009


SNAMES EVENTS 2008/2009 A series of events and programmes were organised by the various Committees in 2008/2009. The followings are the highlight:

Technology Committee

DATE PROGRAMMES SPONSORS Industry Nites 01 Apr 2008 Ceramic Bearings Tru-Marine25 Apr 2008 Main Engines MAN11 Jul 2008 Heavy Fuel Treatment EcoSpec27 Feb 2009 Voith Schneider Props Voith Turbo20 Mar 2009 Marine CAD/CAM Sener Forum Organised By03 Jul 2008 Developing Singapore as an International Maritime Centre SNAMES, Joint Branch of RINA Some efforts in the last 20 years – What more should we & IMarest, CORE do together? By David Chin, SMF Evening Lectures Organised By29 Feb 2008 Marine Project Management SNAMES, Joint Branch of RINA & IMarEST, CORE31 Mar 2008 Management of Maritime Risks through Competent SNAMES, Joint Branch of RINA People and Dependable Systems & IMarEST, CORE16 Sep 2008 Do We Need to Build More Drilling Rigs? SNAMES, Joint Branch of RINA The outlook for the offshore drilling industry & IMarEST, CORE13 Mar 2009 The Red Hawk Cell Spar: From Research to Contract SNAMES, Joint Branch of RINA in One year & IMarEST, CORE16 Mar 2009 Underwater Robots, Learning from Nature, SNAMES, Joint Branch of RINA Preserving Nature & IMarEST, CORE


Awareness Committee

PROGRAMMES • RevamptheAwarenessstrategyandprogrammesso

as to promote SNAMES more effectively • CarryoutmajorexercisetoupdatetheMembership

database • Tobettermanagethecollectionprocess

Website Committee

PROGRAMMES• Plans to introduce a more dynamic SNAMES

website • Effortsareunderwaytorevitalisethewebsite• Main goal is to upload the contents bySNAMES

itself instead of being reliant on third-party service provider


PROGRAMMES• 2008 SNAMES Annual/Technical Journal (30th

Edition) Published• Journal Theme: Propelling Towards the Future of

Marine & Offshore Technology• 1000copiesoftheJournaldistributedtoindividual

and corporate members• Over8TechnicalPaperssubmittedandvettedby

professionals, and published in the Journal

Activities Committee

PROGRAMMES• AnnualDinnerattheGrandCopthorneWaterfront

Hotel - Guest-of-Honour Mr Wong Weng Sun, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sembcorp Marine Ltd - Over 300 guests attended

SPECIAL MENTION

SNAMES would like to single out a few individuals who have been outstanding in their contribution to the advancement of SNAMES’ objectives. They are Mr Ron Pereira and Mr Dave Kinrade, who have respectively been the guiding light in the SNAMES Council. The other is Ms Joan Chua, SNAMES’ Secretariat. Her unreserved dedication and diligence are noteworthy.

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The International Maritime Expo-China (INMEX China), and Maritime Vietnam are established international business platforms encompassing all aspects of ship building, ship repairs, marine services and engineering, offshore engineering, ports and port development. They are the market leading events which bring together the global maritime community under one roof.

Past showings of INMEX China and Maritime Vietnam have been well received by exhibitors and visitors; many of whom have given positive feedback, stating that their overall objectives in exhibiting had exceeded all expectations.

The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers Singapore (SNAMES), with the support of the International Enterprise Singapore, had led the Singapore Pavilion in the two most recent shows – INMEX China 2008 and Maritime Vietnam 2009.

INMEX China 2008 welcomed 8,345 trade buyers and visitors from some 15 countries and regions. The event received an overwhelming response, attracting 462 participating companies from 14 countries. Collectively, they showcased their most innovative products and services across the 15,000sqm exhibition space.

At the Maritime Vietnam 2009, which boosted more interactive concurrent events and stronger international presence compared to its last edition, the event attracted 3359 highly targeted trade buyers and visitors from some 19 countries and regions. With strong representations from 7 national pavilions from China, Germany, Korea, The Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, Maritime Vietnam is now positioning itself as the most extensive business platform for networking opportunities to converge.

INMEX China 2008Date: 26 – 28 November 2008 (Wed to Fri)Show Timings:Opening Ceremony: (26th Nov) 9AM – 10AM1st Day: 10AM - 5PM2nd Day: 9AM - 5PM3rd Day: 9AM - 3PMVenue: Guangzhou Jinhan Exhibition CentreGuangzhou, ChinaExhibition Space: 15,000 sqmExhibitors:No. of Participating Companies: 462No. of Participating Countries: 14Visitors:No. of Visitors: 8,393No. of Countries Represented: 15

Maritime Vietnam 2009 Date: 25 – 27 February 2009 (Wed to Fri)Show Timings:Opening Ceremony: (25 Feb) 9 – 10AM1st Day: 10AM - 6PM2nd Day: 10AM - 6PM3rd Day: 10AM - 5PMVenue: Saigon Exhibition & Convention Centre (SECC)Ho Chi Minh City, VietnamExhibition Space: 5,500 SQMExhibitorsNo. of Exhibitors: 160No. of Participating Countries: 15VisitorsNo. of Visitors: 3359 No. of Countries Represented: 19

Special Report

INMEX China and Maritime VietnamExceeded All Expectations

INMEX China 2010 and Maritime Vietnam 2011 will be no different. With a larger showing and a stronger international support from leading industry players, the shows are projected to surpass previous presentations.

Participants who wish to know more about INMEX China and Maritime Vietnam can contact IIR Exhibitions’ Maritime Series of Events at (65) 6319 2668 or visit www.maritimeshows.com for more information.

POST-SHOW STATISTICS


INMEX China Maritime Vietnam


Kormarine Expo, the International Shipbuilding & Marine Equipment Exhibition, is an important panel for decision makers from all shipbuilding nations. First held in 1978, it has become a key event for ship owners, top managers, engineers and technicans from shipbuilding and marine-related companies to share technologies and information, and to make trend-setting decisions.

This year in Busan, Korea, 21-24 October 2009, Kormarine hosted 1,250 stands and attracted more than 40,000 visitors from 70 countries including Korea, Germany, The UK, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Italy, China, and Singapore.

THE SINGAPORE PAVILION

Singapore made its inaugural appearance at Kormarine 2009 with a national pavilion featuring 10 companies, taking up more than 135 sqm. Supported by the International Enterprise (IE) Singapore, the Singapore Pavilion is managed and led by the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers Singapore (SNAMES).

Established in 1972 as Society of Naval Architects Singapore (SONAS), it was reconstituted in 1981 to include Marine Engineers as Members and renamed as Society of Naval Architects & Marine Engineers Singapore (SNAMES). SNAMES is a non-profit professional body to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information on the practical and scientific aspects of design, construction, operation, repairs and maintenance of marine machinery, structures and vessels and related fields. SNAMES seeks to work with Singapore companies in the diversifying maritime industry to advance their interest through events and trade shows.

Special Report

Singapore Pavilion at Kormarine Expo 2009

Under the Singapore Pavilion, the exhibitors include:

1. CCG Cable Terminations (South East Asia) Pte Ltd

Wholesale of Electrical and Wiring Accessories, Marketing, Distribution and Supply of Electrical Products

2. Comtech Oil Separator and Plate Heat Exchangers Spares Pte Ltd

Sale and Service of Ship Spare Parts3. KM Kinley Marketing Pte Ltd Marine Equipment, Oil and Gas Supplier4. Nitti (Asia) Pte Ltd Manufacturer of “Nitti’ Brand Safety Footwear5. Prosper Marine Pte Ltd Oily Waste Disposal6. Skatool Industries Pte Ltd Manufacturer and Repair of Marine Engine and Ship

Parts. General Wholesale Trade (include general importers & exporters) Ship Sealing Machine, Mucking Winches and Various Parts

7. SPX Hydraulic Technologies U.S. Manufacturer of ‘Power Team’ Hydraulic Tools

and Equipment8. Tru-Marine Pte Ltd Turbocharger Repairs and Parts Supplier9. Vanguard Composite Engineering Pte Ltd Manufacturer of Life Saving Appliances, Life Boat,

Rescue Boat and Hook Release System10. Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers

Singapore


Kormarine Expo 2009


INTRODUCTION

The 2nd International Standing Committee (ISC) Meeting of the 4th Pan Asian Association for Maritime Engineering Societies (PAAMES) and Workshop were held at the Furama Riverfront Hotel, Singapore on 19 October, 2009. The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers Singapore (SNAMES) hosted this event for the PAAMES member societies.

4TH PAAMES/AMEC 2010

SNAMES will host the 4th PAAMES/AMEC 2010 in Singapore on December 6-8, 2010.

AMEC 2008 BEST PAPER AWARDS

Advanced Maritime Engineering Conference (AMEC) 2008 Best Paper Awards were reported at the 2nd ISC Meeting of the 4th PAAMES by Professor Fukasawa, Chairman of International Programme Committee for the 3rd PAAMES and AMEC 2008 as follows. An awards ceremony will be held during the 4th PAAMES/AMEC 2010.

1. The Analysis and Design of Energy-Saving Propulsors by Computational Methods by Ching-yeh Hsin, Kwan-Kai Chang, yue-Hwa Cheng, Chi-Shin Chang

2. Application of CFD-based Simulation to Free Roll Decay for a Ship including Appendage Effect by Kwang-Soo Kim, Jin Kim, Il-Ryong Park, and Suak-Ho Van

3. Study on Control System of Spilled Oil Tracking Autonomous Buoy System by Hiroki Niou, Hidetaka Senga, Naomi Kato, Itou Asuka, Muneo yoshie, Isamu, Fujita, Kazuyuki Igarashi, Etsuro Okuyama

4. Collection of Ultra-Fine Diesel Particulate Matter (DPM) in Electrostatic Water Spraying Scrubber by Tran Hong Ha, Hirotsugu Fujita, Osami Nishida, Harano Wataru

NOTES OF THE 2ND ISC MEETING OF THE 4TH PAAMES

Review of the Preparation of the 4th PAAMES/AMEC 2010Prof Choo yoo Sang, Chairman of International Organising Committee of the 4th PAAMES and AMEC 2010, presented the proposal for the 4th PAAMES Conference and AMEC 2010 and highlighted that the venue for this event will be at the National University of Singapore. The date was fixed on December 6-8, 2010.

Mr A.K. Seah was nominated as the next International Programme Committee (IPC) Chairman and for the sake of continuity in this demanding committee, Prof. Fukasawa was selected as Co-Chairman to work with Mr Seah. Nominations to the IPC for the 4th PAAMES & AMEC 2010 were required to be made by each Society. Tentatively, the representatives from respective countries agreed to submit the number of papers they will present at AMEC 2010 as follows: China (20), Taiwan (at least 5), Korea (20), Hong Kong (5), Japan(20), Singapore(10).

Theme of the 4th PAAMES ForumIt was agreed that the theme of the 4th PAAMES Forum be “Recent Developments in Maritime Safety & Environmental Protection”.

Brief Report on PAAMES

2nd ISC Meeting of the 4th PAAMES


SNAMES Activities for Year 2009

GoH - Mr Wong Weng Sun, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sembcorp Marine Ltd

Guest Speaker - Mr David Chin, Executive Director of Singapore Maritime Foundation

SNAMES President - Mr Chen Chin Kwang, SNAMES Council 2008 / 2009


Annual Dinner 2009


Annual Dinner 2009


Annual Dinner 2009


Annual Golf Tournament 2009


Annual Golf Tournament 2009


Chua Chor Teck Memorial Lecture 2009


Industry Nites

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Like any service industry, insurance is heavily dependent on financial and human capital, just as it is for the offshore and marine industry.

At the 22nd Chua Chor Teck Memorial Lecture (CCTML), speaker Mr Nick Sansom encouraged his audience – hailing from the offshore and marine industry as well as academia – to consider a career in marine insurance.

With plentiful opportunities and exposure to global operations, marine insurers play an important role in the industry.

Speaking at the Lecture entitled “Marine Insurance: Past, Present and Future”, Mr Sansom shed light on the development of the marine insurance industry over the last thirty years, both in Singapore and worldwide.

He shared that the growing capacity of Singapore’s hull market is largely attributed to several factors. Among these are an increase in the number of ship owners with presence here as well as government initiatives that encourage ship operators and marine insurers to make Singapore their base.

According to Mr Sansom, the next stage of development is to have Singapore become a wholesale insurance market for Asian – and ultimately global – ship owners.

Held in memory of the late Mr Chua Chor Teck, the Lecture took place at the Singapore Polytechnic Auditorium on 16 January 2008.

It was organised by the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers of Singapore.

Apart from supporting the CCTML, a Memorial Fund also gives out scholarships in keeping with Mr Chua’s dedication to attracting talents to the marine industry. To read more about the late Mr Chua and the Fund, visit www.kepcorp.com/CCT_Memorial_Fund_Trustee.

This report article is contributed to the SNAMES Journal courtesy of Keppel Corporation Ltd Singapore

Mr Nick Sansom is the Senior Vice President and Head of Marine in Asia of Marsh (S) Pte Ltd. Mr Sansom was a barrister before working in marine insurance. Having built a strong grounding in claims and loss prevention, he moved into underwriting. He is a council member of the Singapore Shipping Association, a member of the Ship Insurance and Legal Committee of the Asia Shipowners Forum and vice-president of the Maritime Law Association of Singapore.

Report on 22nd Chua Chor Teck Memorial Lecture 2008

Insuring Opportunities

Presented byMr Nick Sansom


The vibrancy of the offshore and marine sector is drawing more young talents, though more are still needed to drive the growth and development of the industry.

At the 23rd Chua Chor Teck Memorial Lecture (CCTML), Professor Choo yoo Sang, Director (Research), Centre for Offshore Research & Engineering (CORE) of National University of Singapore (NUS), encouraged his audience, especially the students, to consider the long-term benefits of a career in the offshore engineering industry.

Offshore engineers in particular, play an important role in the industry and enjoy plenty of opportunities and exposure to global operations.

Speaking on “Offshore Engineering Research and Education”, Professor Choo explained, “The exploration and production industry faces long term challenges, with the talent gap varying from 9,000 to 45,000 personnel needed.

“There will be a high outflow of experienced people retiring in 10-15 years time, with considerably fewer young and mid-career people to take over.”

“The identified challenge can be seen as opportunities for Singapore to be directly involved in the education and training for the next generation of engineers and technologists of the oil and gas industry.”

Professor Choo is the first person from Asia elected as President to helm the Institute of Marine Engineering Science & Technology (IMarEST). He has served in many scientific and technical committees as host, Chairman and Co-Chairman and received numerous awards.

Professor Choo also illustrated some of the projects and developments at CORE, which have benefitted from the strong university-industry partnerships in education, research and development.

These include research on installation engineering, jack-up foundation issues, very large floating structures and structural integrity management.

Held in memory of the late Mr Chua Chor Teck, one of the pioneers of Singapore’s marine industry, the Lecture took place at the Singapore Polytechnic Auditorium on 13 January 2009, and was attended by some 370 people. It was organised by the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers of Singapore and Keppel Offshore & Marine.

This report article is contributed to the SNAMES Journal courtesy of Keppel Corporation Ltd Singapore

Professor Choo Yoo Sang is the Lloyd’s Register Educational Trust Chair Professor in National University of Singapore (NUS) and Director (Research), Centre for Offshore Research & Engineering (CORE) at (NUS). He is the first Asian elected as President, Institute of Marine Engineering Science & Technology (IMarEST). He has served in many scientific and technical committees as host, Chairman and Co-Chairman and received numerous awards. He has also served as member of Editorial Board for Journal of Marine Structures, International Journal of Ships and Offshore Structures, Journal of Marine Engineering and Technology and International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering.

Report on 23rd Chua Chor Teck Memorial Lecture 2009

Generation of Young Talents

Presented byProfessor Choo Yoo Sang

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Strategic Papers


Navigating Stormy Waters

Thank you for inviting me to give the Third Singapore Maritime Lecture during Singapore’s Maritime Week. To follow Minister-Mentor Lee and the Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization in this series is a privilege, and I am grateful for your interest.

The main issue on everyone’s mind these days seems to be the global economic crisis and it is on this topic that I will centre my remarks. How bad is it? What does it mean for shipping? And what can we do to address the challenges facing us?

Some have started to compare the reactions in this crisis to the well-documented stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. In the financial sector, we saw denial as a reaction to the first signs of trouble in mid-2007; and in 2008, it was denial that prompted references to Asia decoupling. Whilst I do not wish to be accused of talking the market further down, I believe a frank assessment of our challenges in the maritime industry is the only way to avoid prolonging the state of denial. So I will try to be realistic about where we are, and hopefully we can move quickly to the acceptance stage without too much anger and depression along the way.

So how bad is it? During 2008, financial assets around the world are estimated to have dropped by more than US$50 trillion according to the Asian Development Bank. Export and trade volumes have declined dramatically. A few of the world’s largest financial institutions have come close to bankruptcy. Unemployment rates are still rising, asset prices are falling, and many homeowners around the world live in fear of default.

For shipping, the statistics are also stark. Current market rates for transportation are extremely weak across

THIRD SINGAPORE MARITIME LECTURE Dr Helmut Sohmen Chairman, BW Group Limited Singapore, 21 April 2009

the board – below breakeven running costs in almost all segments. Demand has significantly reduced for transportation of all goods, including energy. And the supply shock is only just getting started: at the end of last year, the industry had on order 500 billion US dollars worth of new ships, or 350 million gross tonnes, compared to an average orderbook of 100 billion dollars and 75 million gross tonnes.

In a nutshell, the gap between supply and demand is growing faster than at any time since the late 1970s, and we are only at the beginning. Although there are always differences between one recession and another, one cannot help but recall the words of economist John Kenneth Galbraith: “The singular feature of the great crash of 1929 was that the worst continued to worsen. What looked one day like the end proved on the next day to have been only the beginning”. How could we have got it so wrong? The answers now seem obvious. The shipping industry is an essential part of the global trading system. We got caught up in the enthusiasm of all market participants. This exuberance was fuelled by low interest rates, increased consumption, rising asset prices, and a resultant sense of wealth leading to additional consumption and investment. At the same time, risk assessments were showing increasingly benign results: after all, how do you measure risk when there are no defaults on recent record, underlying values are looking stronger and stronger, and one can easily hedge that risk in the credit derivatives market?

For shipping, this was intensified by the highly competitive instincts of the sector’s participants, encouraged by shipyards eager to remain or become major industrial players, and media focus on individuals growing empires in just a few years from a standing start. Then despite


consistently rising newbuilding costs, or perhaps because of them, too many shipowners were fearful of being left behind. Some now look at the global economic problems as the cause of the shipping crisis, but the truth is that even without a global crisis we were building more ships than we were likely to need.

Every boom has a plausible explanation while it is happening. In the late 1990s, it was the new paradigm offered by the internet. In the past five years, the rationale has been the industrialisation of China and India, and the conquering of risk through new financial instruments. It is of course difficult to swim against the tide of opinion: cautionary warnings are often taken as being weak-minded or old-fashioned.

My experience during some 40 years of involvement in shipping has taught me three basic things about our industry:

1) Shipping is an integral part of global economic activity. That of course means we are doing well when world trade is flourishing, but we cannot avoid the fall-out when economic growth and trade volumes contract.

2) Good times in shipping rarely last as long as the bad times. The reason is simple: tonnage supply will always outrun demand as ships can be built ever faster. I like to use the analogy of a rowboat: it always takes much more energy to right an overturned rowboat than it takes to capsize it in the first place.

3) Being capital-intensive, shipping is critically dependent on the health of the financial system and the availability of credit.

Apart from the obvious conclusion that conservatism in our business is a recipe for long-term survival, these tenets contain in them some answers to our current predicament.

Taking them in reverse order, the well-being of the financial sector is of paramount importance to our industry, not to mention the world at large. Referring back to the stages of grief, the market’s feelings towards the banks has recently clearly moved from denial to anger. While it has become almost fashionable to criticise the banks, and to question the government funds being provided to them, we should not lose sight of the fact that our economic well-being depends on a healthy banking system.

Some argue for nationalisation, others for the creation of so-called ‘bad banks’. It is unlikely that any of these will provide a silver bullet to fix the problem, any more than the problem of leverage will be solved by creating more leverage at government level. From the 1980s to the present day, financial sector debt in the United States rose from 22% to 117%; total debt from 160% to 350%. Deleveraging is no longer a matter of choice, but a matter of survival.

A return to good old-fashioned banking means shrinking balance sheets to the point where the value of loans more closely matches deposits. This does not happen overnight.

The good news is that governments seem to have concluded from Lehman Brothers that we cannot afford more large bank failures. But as with grief, time is sometimes the best medicine, and the shipping industry will meanwhile have to be prepared for credit to be more scarce than we have been accustomed to. As Warren Buffett once observed: “No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: you can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

The second tenet relates to tonnage supply. If oversupply is aggravating the problem, it is through supply side changes that we will find a resolution. Some of the reduction in supply will happen naturally as the difficulty in obtaining finance will lead to delays or cancellation of existing orders and a reluctance to order new ships. But this will also be a slow process of unwinding, especially if governments step in to underwrite the completion of frustrated contracts. In other words, not all cancelled contracts will lead to unbuilt ships.

My recommendation would be for owners of elderly vessels to seriously consider scrapping earlier rather than later. Scrap prices are still reasonable and later sales may only find lower prices and crowded scrapyards, and more stringent rules affecting safe scrapping. As in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a problem may be that book values are at a high level, reflecting recent prices, and some companies may therefore be reluctant to come to a scrapping decision. But this is denial – better to take some bitter medicine today than to find oneself requiring surgery tomorrow.

Turning to newbuilding contracts, I am not an advocate of defaulting on one’s obligations, but there should


be mutual interest in shipping companies, shipyards and banks working together to reduce the orderbook. Shipyards may feel pressure to maintain production by completing vessels, but it might in fact be in their interest to negotiate to keep the deposits and not build the ships. Pressing on with contracts now will create two problems down the road: firstly, building ships which cannot be paid for is likely to be very costly; and secondly, enlarging the tonnage overhang will only ensure that shipyards lie empty in future. Again, what is it to be: sharp pain with a ready recovery, or prolonged agony?

Other solutions to overcapacity might be in using vessels as storage; scheduling drydocks for maintenance; having vessels slow-steam for prolonged periods (thereby also reducing fuel costs and helping the environment); or laying up more vessels as is already happening today.

The other tenet I referred to was the fact that shipping is an integral part of the global economy. In the last few months, major Asian economies have seen staggering declines in exports, with Taiwan down 44% towards the end of 2008, Japan down 50% in February, and China seeing a drop of 25% recently. The WTO predicts global trade will shrink by 9% this year.

One of the biggest threats to the shipping industry is that these figures will be compounded by the politicisation of trade and the onset of trade barriers. David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage still holds true – that society’s gains are greatest when we allow goods to be produced where this can be done most effectively, and then traded. But the widely dispersed benefits of lower prices are less apparent than the immediate jolt of a lost job; and in the face of rising unemployment, politicians will find it hard to withstand popular pressure to protect domestic products. At the G-20 meeting in November last year, participants pledged to avoid protectionist measures; but by the time of the ensuing meeting this April, no less than 17 of the 20 nations were found by the World Bank to have “implemented measures whose effect is to restrict trade at the expense of other countries”. Few observers seem confident that the Doha Round of trade talks can be resurrected soon.

As an industry, we must lend our voice vigorously to defending the global trading system which has raised the quality of life for so many millions around the world.

Protectionism comes in many shapes and sizes, and

trade restrictions are only one example. Another is government intervention to subsidise failing businesses, with suggestions now that this might occur in the shipbuilding industry. This type of protection is also very damaging as it distorts the normal working of the market and encourages moral hazard. Bailouts in the financial sector may have been necessary to prevent collateral damage; but as the US government has come to realise with General Motors, one cannot support a failing business forever, even in the name of job preservation. Subsidising shipyards may appear to work for a short while, but one cannot fill emptying berths with government money indefinitely. Last month, the Economist published an article titled: “A deluge of new ships pours into a drowning industry”. The article’s concluding sentence: “Rather than a bail-out, what the industry really needs is for some participants to sink”.

A third form of protectionism is appearing for key resources like energy, on which the maritime sector depends. Recent price history and expected future shortages are driving some nations to become more insular in their thinking. Our ability to fuel the global economy in an effective and environmentally friendly way depends on being able to deploy the best technology from around the world. Pushing heavily for local content and squeezing out foreign companies may again sound good politically, but will undermine global economic success in the longer run.

Singapore, which in recent years has developed into an outward looking financial centre, a significant maritime hub and a sizeable trading post, will in many ways be seen as an example of what can be achieved in hard times by an enlightened government with political clout. Of course, as recent figures published have shown, Singapore is quite exposed to the effects of the current downturn. With a small domestic market, Singapore is particularly dependent on international trade. Given its singular reputation as a successful Asian economy, and a country which thereby punches above its weight, Singapore should raise its voice against protectionist instincts wherever it can.

I have referred to free markets, reduced tonnage supply, and a stable credit system as being on the achievable path to recovery for the maritime industry. Governments have more power than the participants in the maritime industry to influence free trade and financial markets, but we can do something about tonnage supply. Having


created this particular problem as an industry, we should now act forcefully to address it.

My final comment is that while we fight the fires in front of us, we must also try to raise our heads to look at the more distant horizon. I see in the future a world where environmental consciousness reaches new heights, demanding ships that are fuel-efficient and kinder to the atmosphere. I foresee that the quest for scarce energy resources leads us deeper into the maritime environment in the search for oil and gas. Realignment of the geopolitical order will ensure that ships continue to play a vital role in connecting new trading partners. In a less benign sense, it will create new threats to the safe passage of vessels on account of war, piracy, and militancy. Regulation will continue to multiply, while technological advances may bring an automated form of transparency, when the movement and performance of ships can be monitored on a continuous basis just as shore-based facilities are today. Those who are still able

to invest in solutions to these issues will be well placed to face the future.

Returning to the here and now, I am reminded of a Woody Allen quote: “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” I am not so gloomy - despite all the negative signs, there are some grounds for optimism. Government action to stimulate the economy is being taken with unprecedented scale and speed. The rise of the middle class in developing nations like India, China, or Brazil is a secular trend that will continue. The demand for energy and maritime expertise will go on for a long time to come. The key question is how quickly we can put ourselves back on the path of recovery, and the answer lies in moving from denial to acceptance and action. I hope that we all have the courage to do so.


CONTENTS

1.0 Introduction 1.1 The Start of the Present Shipping Cycle 1.2 The peaking of the present shipping cycle

2.0 Shipping Markets – Shipping Industry/ Shipping Economics 2.1 Shipping Cycles 2.2 Era of Financial Innovation 2.3 How the Financial Nightmare Spread Its Horror into the shipping world? 2.4 Era of China’s Ascension to WTO and China’s Impact on Shipping

3.0 Shipping as Capital Investment for Growth

4.0 Financial Crisis Impact on Container Shipping Trade

5.0 Report on Container Shipping Trade

6.0 Container Shipping Future / Challenges 6.1 Capacity in Terms of Supply and Demand 6.2 Schumpeter’s Innovation Shift and Environmental Policy Shift

7.0 Conclusion

The views are the personal views of the author.

1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Start of the Present Shipping Cycle

As an aftermath effect of the stock market collapse from dot-com and the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks,

The Cause of the Present Shipping Market Downturn with Particular Emphasis on the Container Shipping Economic Cycle

Thong Sew KaitDirector of Newbuildings and DryDocking, Technical Services Dept, APL

the Federal Reserve (Fed) lowered the interest rate (Chart 1) to combat the perceived threat of an in-coming deflation. The stimulus and the competitive behaviour led to increasing rates of globalization and the flourishing of international trade. Shipping, as the transportation facilitator of trade, grew substantially, with growth exceeding the norms of typical past shipping rates of growth.

Chart 1

Source: Federal Reserve

Table 1Source: Global Economics Research

Chart 2 Source: Stockcharts.com

Page 2 of 18

Chart 1

Source: Federal Reserve

Year 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Percent change at annual rate:

Gross domestic product: 4.4 4.8 4.1 1.1 1.8 2.5 3.6 3.1 2.7 2.1 .4

Table 1

Source: Global Economics Research

Chart 2

Source: Stockcharts.com


1.2 The Peaking of the Present Shipping Cycle

In the year 2004, the Fed started to reverse its low interest policy in a series of small cautious steps. The interest rate reversal policy eventually led to a sudden drop in the global trade with the tightening in trade credit. Increased risk aversion led to the near drying up of trade finance through the increased cost of trade financing. The scene was thus set for a dramatic change in the shipping environment.

Chart 3 Source: Dryship Inc

The near collapse in international trade, created the right recipe for the shipping market down cycle, leading to a downwards decline in the shipping market as shown in the Baltic Dry Index chart (Chart 3) and Howe Robinson Containership indices (Chart 4). This dramatic cyclical behaviour is prevalent in shipping cycles.

Chart 4 Source: Howe Robinson Research

2.0 SHIPPING MARKETS – SHIPPING INDUSTRy/ SHIPPING ECONOMICS

There are different segments within the shipping industry; namely; bulk carriers for the dry trade (commodity), tankers for the wet trade (oil / processed oil / chemicals), container ships for semi-finished or manufactured goods and other specialist segments. Within each shipping industry segment, there are different markets determining the supply or availability of shipping capacity.

The shipping freight market is the driving force towards the demand and supply balance in the availability of ships. The demand and supply capacity balance is determined by three(3) supporting markets; namely, the Sale and Purchase market, the Shipbuilding market and the Demolition market. Short term demand and supply are met by pricing variations within the Sale and Purchase market whilst longer term replacement capacity and natural obsolescence are met via the Shipbuilding and Demolition market. The very international nature of the shipping business, shipping finance, assets and its workforce means that the industry is globally competitive and is a near perfect competition model. This means that it is one of the better models for the study of economic cycles.

2.1 Shipping Cycles

The shipping market is synonymous with cycles. Cycles have literally, been the lifestyle as their beginning starts from the freight market. Each trade, whether it is a time charter or voyage charter begins with bids. Each bid over a period of time varies, depending on competitive market conditions as owners seek to maximize their potential profit whilst charterers seek to minimize the freight rates. Each transaction will result in bid variations and such variations, will tend to either go up or down depending on the availability of tonnage or cargo.

Over time, these variations can be differentiated into seasonal or annual cycles, short business cycles and long wave cycles (Kondratieff, Schumpeter).

The boom phase in 2006 followed shortly after the recovery phase in 2004 as ship owners or participants within the shipping trade took advantage of the potential profitable environment, to maximize returns (Chart 3 / Chart 4 mapped onto Chart 2). The barriers to entry in newbuildings were near negligible, other than pure


conviction and financial means. Each imbalance in tonnage stirs up the freight market, and intense activity within the Sale and Purchase marketplace. Eventually, the market activity will lead to the newbuildings market. The newbuildings market is fraught with uncertainty as there is a time lag of two or more years from contract to the ship’s delivery, as can be seen from the recent 2007~8 newbuildings contracts. The risk in newbuildings has intensified greatly, especially in a prolonged economic bull market with the economic boom cycle peaking before the ship’s delivery or just post delivery. For the demolition market, the economic boom time is in its consolidation phase and with a downturn, the demolition industry swings into an upturn.

The inevitability of the shipping business is that when the freight market is stirred, the Sale and Purchase market is activated. But before long, the newbuildings market also moves, with speculators swamping and booking up the slots. When the “real” operators start moving, the various marketplaces would have been over-stimulated. Each marketplace has already been on an elevated phase and when an economic event pervades the system, a swift downturn will start to infect the system. The freight market goes into reverse, followed by the Sale and Purchase market, then, the Newbuildings market with activity starting to reappear in the demolition market.

The lagging effect of the physical supply-demand market creates an overhang of surpluses and deficits in tonnages in the boom and bust environment. The severity and time span between each boom and bust is dependent on a number of factors; (a) Economic recovery process or political events (b) The rate of supply and demand balance of

tonnages (c) The speed of shipyard’s consolidation (excess

capacity)

Unlike past downturns, this downturn affects the various shipping sectors from bulker, tanker and container shipping, all at the same time. This unprecedented synchronization of all the shipping markets would clearly affect the shipping industry badly, over the next few years.

2.2 Era of Financial Innovation

The first decade of the 21st century has been marked by an era of financial innovation. The era of financial

innovation has brought the perceived “wealth” concept into the financial world and leveraging as the way to expand.

The leveraged system has in fact, contributed to a substantial and fast growth in the shipping industry. Financial innovation encouraged the outsourcing of manufacturing to emerging economies especially China. The perceived “wealth” effect drives the consumption habits in the developed nations and manufacturing outsourcing grows at a rapid pace. As the exports from China grew, demand growth for container ships grew in double digit growth and supply lagged behind the demand growth (Chart 11). The first container shipping freight market spurt was at the end of 2003 but slackened in mid 2005 based on past boom shipping cycle growth. However, by 2007 the realization that a down cycle did not materialise, and with China’s hosting of the Olympics, the boom cycle was lengthened. It was during this period of perceived euphoria, that the newbuildings market grew rapidly with “green field” yards spurting up in Korea and China.

The foundation for overcapacity in shipbuilding capacity was thus laid and the newbuildings market is set for a long downturn and depressed newbuilding prices over the next few years. 2.3 How the Financial Nightmare Spread Its Horror

into the Shipping World?

There are two likely scenarios which are being played out; namely; the freight market and the financial market for financing a long term asset with declining value. As in chart 4 and/or chart 5, depending on charter arrangements eg time or voyage charter, declining freight rate leads to reducing revenue, consequently, lowering asset value. It is a double spiral down, with credit tightening that makes the decreasing cash flow more difficult to balance in a depressing environment.

As can be seen from the cycle of market emotions (Chart 6), the market players’ mass psychological behaviour in the stock market reminds us of our fraility in human behaviour regarding anticipation of long-term events or decisions about future events with capital expenditure projects. It reminds us of the difficulty for long term projections and scanning of an event which could disrupt our process, and in this case, shipping, so dramatically. This will result in positive “rent” being earned during


boom and negative “rent” during downturn when the ships’ supply overshoot the mark. The most crucial factor is the rate or velocity of change in the supply/demand equation.

Chart 5Source: Container Market Annual Review and Forecast 2009/10,

Drewy Publishing

Shipping was euphoric with bountiful profits in the booming years from 2003 to 2008. It was this euphoric positive feeling of potential profits and future financial projection of positive growth that capital intensive assets like ships were contracted to yards by shipping companies. With this innovative financial climate, cheap financing through innovative financing arrangement also encourage capacity growth too.

Chart 6Source: Catalano, Vinny

2.4 Era of China’s Ascension to WTO and China’s Impact on Shipping

On 11th November, 2001 China joined WTO and accelerated the pace of trade integration into the global trade. In fact, the exports from Asia grew from some 35% to 45% whilst internal consumption decreased (Chart 7). From Table 2, it is noted that America is the final destination for some 20% of the goods from Japan and China. It was during this era, after China’s ascension, that globalization of manufacturing accelerated. With restructuring during the Asian financial crisis, the final assembling was relocated to China. Intermediate

Chart 7Source: Roach, Stephen S.

Table 2Source: Roach, Stephen S.


manufacturing was retained within SE Asia and container shipping benefited through growth in intra-Asian shipping as well as export growth to developed nations. In 2007, growth rates in the Pearl Delta basin for container terminals handling rates as well as exports growth were in excess of 20%. In later years, this phenomenon was repeated in the Shanghai region. These explosive growth rates in the exports of manufactured goods earned China the title of “manufacturing centre of the world”. With such explosive growth, container shipping tonnage lagged behind demand tonnage, and freight grew rapidly (Chart 5). A number of factors, as detailed above, including ship regulatory rules started to impact shipping, creating an environment of tonnage upgrading in the face of such environmental change eg double hull rules for oil tankers, and common structural rules (CSR) rules for bulk carriers. These factors, including growth, created an exceptional demand for ships as well as shipyards. (Chart 8) The congruence of factors had created an unprecedented peaking in growth rates for all seaborne trade.

Chart 8Source: Clarkson Research Services

Just recently, the shipping downturn has been in a very painful adjustment phase of a sharp downward shift in cargo movement. Drastic action by world leaders appears to have arrested the slide. Trade credit and trade appears to have weathered the downturn a little bit better now, staging a slow, long road towards recovery.

3.0 SHIPPING AS CAPITAL INVESTMENT FOR GROWTH

Chart 9Source: Container Intelligence Monthly

Traditionally, ship operators had been growing conservatively and lately, in view of the fast pace of growth, liner operators had been growing with charter-in tonnages. This reflect the structure of ownership in shipping risk especially when shipping profits are used to cover the down period, whilst still reaping in a reasonable return over the span of the ship. It will be interesting to see the likely outcome of the composition of this relationship as the crisis play out. Will this be a symbiotic or parasitic relationship whereby one party support the other or will it stress the relationship to a point of devouring the host?

Let us look at a typical 8000 TEU ship, whose price ranged from US$80 million in 2003 to US$ 120 million in 2008.

Chart 10

From Chart 10, the unit fuel price fluctuation has tremendously stressed the finances of container shipping companies. The frantic rate of rise in fuel price has misled liner companies in their investment decisions. With the

Container Ship's Cost Variation

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Year

Co

st

$ (

millio

n, $)

New build Price (million)

Fuel Cost ($)


downturn, the container’s annual volume growth has collapsed and its recovery depends very much on the world economic recovery. For a start, investment decisions are taken in earnest as such investment is capital intensive. It could easily sap the financial strength of any shipping company in a downturn. The relative ease with which fuel prices rise, the relative hype of influence in investment decisions, and presently, environmental considerations would change the present sphere of economic consideration towards a supercharged fleet renewal in the not too distance future.

Table 3: Relative Percentage Variation in Fuel and Charter contribution to voyage cost

It can be seen from Table 3 that the relative merits have shifted to emphasize the importance of scale economy in the competitive sphere of container shipping such that the 8100 TEU vessels delivered even more savings in fuel, based on 2009 fuel price.

Table 4: Global Supply / Demand BalanceSource : Clarkson Research Services

The boom in shipbuilding has followed the change in government policies especially with respect to the low interest rate “stimulus policy” by Fed and a realization of “under building” in 2004 as an after-thought of the post 2003 Asian Currency Crisis. There was a sudden spurt in newbuildings whilst waiting for the economic conditions to improve. By then, the economic conditions of developed countries with GDP growth of 2 to 3 plus % spurred the container shipping fleet growth by a multiplier

effect to double digit growth. The golden era of shipping was thus, established and with it, the lesson of shipping cycles or the boom-bust cycles was forgotten. Fear and denial were replaced by hope and relief. The mood further changed to excitement and thrill as contractual prices in newbuildings rose. Speculation moved into newbuildings and the growth of “green fields” or fly-by night shipyards resulted in exceptional capacity growth in fleets across all ship’s types- an period in which overcapacity will sink the shipping market. This appears to be an unprecedented synchronization of all shipping markets.

4.0 FINANCIAL CRISIS IMPACT ON CONTAINER SHIPPING TRADE

Chart 11Source: Howe Robinson Research

By 3rd quarter 2008, the full implication of the financial crises started to impact on the container shipping charter rates as well as 2nd hand vessels prices (Chart 5). Container ship supply growth outstripped demand growth while uncertainty gripped the financial industry.

Chart 12Source: Howe Robinson Research


A dread befell the container shipping industry as it focused on the incoming supply in the near future. The entry of many, very large container ships (VLCS > 8000 TEU) will affect the dynamics of the container shipping industry. It will be interesting to observe how the container shipping industry tries to absorb such capacity and how the global container freight market share will be re-distributed.

Fear gripped the financial industry and so too, the container shipping industry. By 1st quarter 2009, fear spread across the Atlantic to Europe, capacity management started in earnest with shipping operators, adopting or considering various strategies eg.: (a) Layup (b) Demolition (c) Cancellation (d) Postponement of delivery

The ramification of the downturn, from financial to container shipping industry is just the beginning. VLCS are in a closed market with long tenure relationships whilst, smaller container ships, about 2500 TEU and below, are speculative with short term charters. Liner companies started to reduce capacity and reduce speed in earnest to contain cost. Smaller or shorter time chartered vessels were released as their chartered period ended. Ships were laid up and demolition of older vessels started in earnest. The demolition industry started to wake up from its slumber as the financial industry woes intensified.

Asian operators started to adopt one or more of the above policies to manage their capacity whilst European operators eg Maersk; started to adopt a more involved policy of varied speed management to manage capacity / utilization and minimize layup. Their relative sizes or ships’ capacities, may be the key in the differentiated approach towards capacity management.

5.0 REPORT ON CONTAINER SHIPPING TRADE

5.1 Liner Shipping Companies Results

By 2nd half of 2009, container shipping trade is mired with losses.

Table 5: Profit and Loss Report of Liner Companies

Page 13 of 18

5.1 Liner Shipping Companies Results

By 2nd

half of 2009, container shipping trade is mired with losses.

Maersk Evergreen Hapaq Lloyd OOCL

Losses Million (US$) 961 143.2 618 224

Revenue Million (US$) 9800 1193.939 3184 2053

9.81% 11.99% 19% 11%

Freight drop 30% 39% 19.80%

Table 4:

Freight generally fell and container shipping lines experienced losses which ranged

from between10% to 20%. Without rate restoration, container shipping is bound to stop

operating. Policies adopted by Maersk, limited their losses, whose base in on multi-trade

using VLCS. Notably, MSC and CGM were without layup vessels, getting rid of their

old tonnages through demolition and letting ships go when their time charter ended.

Container shipping lines also had to adopt aggressive cost management on fuel as well as

speed reduction program, to curb their astonishing fuel bill of 38% (5500 TEU) and

34%(8100 TEU) contribution to voyage cost. (Table 2). The VLCS generally adopted a 9

weeks loop whilst 5500 TEUs ships adopted 8 weeks for FE-Europe Service during boom

time whilst now, it has slipped into 10/11 weeks or 9 weeks loop respectively. Some

even embarked on a cape route for the back haul leg. The variable speed programme for

westbound and eastbound, was curtailed by the sudden spurt of fuel cost from Feb 2009

to US 440 / mt.

With trade reduction, lines withdrew services and consolidated their services so as to

maintain the ship’s utilization. European shipping lines meanwhile appeared to have

adopted a “sunk cost” concept on their ships. They maintained their services westbound

(head haul) while it slow steamed, on its backhaul.

Freight generally fell and container shipping lines experienced losses which ranged from between 10% to 20%. Without rate restoration, container shipping is bound to stop operating. Policies adopted by Maersk, limited their losses, whose base is on multi-trade using VLCS. Notably, MSC and CGM were without layup vessels, getting rid of their old tonnages through demolition and letting ships go when their time charter ended.

Container shipping lines also had to adopt aggressive cost management on fuel as well as speed reduction program, to curb their astonishing fuel bill of 38% (5500 TEU) and 34% (8100 TEU) contribution to voyage cost. (Table 3). The VLCS generally adopted a 9 weeks loop whilst 5500 TEUs ships adopted 8 weeks for FE-Europe Service during boom time whilst now, it has slipped into 10/11 weeks or 9 weeks loop respectively. Some even embarked on a cape route for the back haul leg. The variable speed programme for westbound and eastbound, was curtailed by the sudden spurt of fuel cost from Feb 2009 to US 440 / mt.

With trade reduction, lines withdrew services and consolidated their services so as to maintain the ship’s utilization. European shipping lines meanwhile appeared to have adopted a “sunk cost” concept on their ships. They maintained their services westbound (head haul) while it slow steamed, on its backhaul.

Chart 13 Assumption: Boom time Scheduling but Fuel at US$440/mt FEU cost (Voyage cost basis)


The “sunk cost” has its merit in that capital cost is already foregone whilst fuel cost and customer’s loyalty is maintained in the head haul whilst back haul fuel saving could be effected. This is a function of variability in fuel-speed cost management and customer’s freight ratio between head and back haul.

Asian operators appear to have cut some services and hence, still maintain their utilization rate. The only issue is that freight is below cost.

With the “sunk cost” concept, assuming VLCS ship’s utilization drops some 80% (assuming a general trade reduction of 20%), the advantage of economy of scale and maintaining the fleet running would be a cost disadvantage. Inevitably, these VLCS operators would have to improve their utilization factor via predatory pricing and thus, take advantage of their scale advantage. As can be seen in Chart 13, at 80% utilization, the relative cost between a 5500 TEU and 80% (8100 TEU) would result in a relative cost disadvantage to an 8100 TEU ship.

With a declined or reduced volume of container’s shipped, the 5500 TEU load utilization factor could be maintained at a high level with service cut, but for VLCS, its service disruption is more convoluted and its network challenges greater, if it also adopts the same tactical move. The VLCS operators would also move towards predatory pricing in expanding their market share.

6.0 CONTAINER SHIPPING FUTURE / CHALLENGES

6.1 Capacity in Terms of Supply and Demand

(a) Supply Management This is one of the greatest concerns between all liner operators but unlike governments, whose uncertainty is one of its citizen and economy. For the liner operators, the backstop is bankruptcy. Boom and burst cycles always present consolidation opportunities through merger and acquisition (M&A) for liner companies. The history of liner companies has been beset with consolidation.

Maersk announced that it would be raising capital for acquisition in September, 2009. Neptune Orient Lines launched a right issue in June 2009.

Other strategic options that will open opportunities for shipping companies are “fire sale” acquisition in

ships. The financing of ships, ie the sourcing of credit is becoming more difficult day by day. The value of ships has practically become a mathematical model market as evident through the release of the “Hamburg Ship Evaluation Standard” in February, 2009. The anaemic shipbuilding market is further distressed by the news of bickering between CGM CMA and Korea Export Import Bank, ships not being delivered and moored alongside the shipyards eg Wen Chong shipyard, newbuilding shipyards turning towards dry-docking activities as well as CSAV re-configuring their newbuildings contract from four, 12500 TEUs container ships to five, 8500 TEUs container ships. The above strategic options do not directly address capacity. They result in opportunities and the death of companies/consolidation, resulting in further rationalization of resources, in short, reduced capacity but higher utilization.

The most direct impact would be demolition and slippages through cancellation and postponement. Increased demolition, is only a small dent to overall capacity as the older ships are generally small. That leaves us, with cancellation and postponement as the last option towards sanity in management of supply.

Layup is not the real solution, but a temporal approach toward deferment of capacity in service.

(b) Demand ManagementDemand management is dependent on growth in developed countries especially America and Europe for container shipping. The confidence in the consumer market during the “stimulus” and post-stimulus recovery behaviour would be a very defining moment in a credit enhanced consumer behaviour environment for the future. The slippage in consumer behaviour would prolong the demand growth for consumer goods and this may not be borne well with container shipping tonnages. (See Chart 7).

Export led economies would have to grow their own base in consumerism though domestic consumption. Presently, China’s stimulus to grow domestic consumption as well as Asian economies, will add to their countries GDP’s growth but will not contribute too much to the global container trade.

These stimulus policies will definitely be good for bulk


and oil trade but their contribution is rather limited towards intra-Asian container trade – a growth in the regional trade.

These small steps, though small, in terms of container shipping may, through the bulk and oil trade, revive the economies of commodity trade. Through it, the opportunities in new market could be the next area of growth.

6.2 Schumpeter’s Innovation Shift and Environmental Policy Shift

Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction and the rise of innovation is aptly in place especially with challenges in the environmental front. The traditional approach in supply-demand balance for container shipping is mired with uncertainty and inherently stuck in a multi-year compression in the US consumerism.

Innovation initiatives with carbon trading implication, could result in the rise of various engineering innovation strategies in fuel saving and environment, for example, fuel efficiency enhancement technologies, hull friction reduction strategies like silicon paint and air bubble technology and air pollution strategies like scrubbing technologies. These are incremental technological shifts which could influence the competitive sphere.

As the shipping industry is not part of the technological innovation setup, early adopters do not necessary gain competitive advantage over their competitors except on a short run basis and which, at times, can go terribly wrong eg US lines with speed reduction in the 80’s.

The present driver towards environmental changes is through regulatory change and the search towards “greener” fuel. Liner companies will search out cheaper alternatives or engineering solutions which will result in a shift in technological response. The ups and downs in the shipping industry is likened to the years when shipping also faced technological challenges as steam ships were outdated by slow speed diesel engines because of economics.

7.0 CONCLUSION

There is great change in store over this period of challenge in environmental shift, financial stress and changing developed nation consumerism for container shipping. These changes might create a sea change in container shipping, segmenting the liner companies to hub and spoke shipping and direct shipping operators. These changes could also lay the foundation stone towards terminals hub status, the flexibility of labour and government actions in a competitive global environment to promote and support the hub status.

There might be a pause in the pursuit of economy of scale. A likely sea change towards slow steaming might evolve with the industry facing head winds from the environmental front. The industry might adopt slow steaming as the new paradigm for the future in the face of deflationary effects in the developed countries over the next few years. Crude oil price (scarce or limited resources) might trend upwards or remain constant at the present level. Its pricing might entrench container shipping into slow steaming, an era that will reshape economic challenge to the container ships’ assets under the auspices of the green movement.

This is a time for reflection. A time to review container shipping as “niche” or direct shipping or a common carrier basis, as a reflection to an earlier and pre-defined segmentation in tanker shipping of VLCCs, suezmax and aframax. A time to reflect on the changes brought about with post-new panama canal operation, a time in which the world is truly linked by the VLCS for round the world service and Suez / new-Panama canal competing for canal tolls.


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http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Interest-Rate.aspx?Symbol=USD (Accessed Sept 2009)

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http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm (Accessed Sept 2009)

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http://stockcharts.com/charts/historical/djia2000.html (Accessed August 2009)

4. yann Duval, Wei Liu, (2009). The global financial crisis:A wake-up call for trade finance capacity building in emerging Asia

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3667 (Accessed Sept 2009)

5. Dryship Inc, 2009. Baltic Index Chart ht tp: //www.dryships.com/pages/repor t.asp

(Accessed Sept 2009)6. Howe Robinson Shipbrokers, 2009. Containership

4th quarter and annual review 2008.

7. Stopford, Martin (1997). Maritime Economics,3rd Edition, Routledge (2009)

8. Catalano, Vinny (2008). A Look at the Cycle of Market Emotion

http://seekingalpha.com/article/68412-a-look-at-the-cycle-of-market-emotions (Accessed Sept 2009)

9. Roach, Stephen S. (2007). A Subprime Outlook for the Global Economy

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article2537.html (Accessed Sept 2009)

10. World Ship Monitor, volume 16, No 7 Clarkson Research Services Ltd.

11. Clarkson Research Services Ltd, 2009. Container Intelligence Monthly, Vol 11, No 7 (July 2009)

12. AXSMarine (2009). Alphaliner Weekly Newletter, Volume 2009, Issue 33

Thong Sew Kait is a Naval Architect and has been involved in Newbuildings supervision from early eighties. His experience spans from tankers to container ships and culturally adapted to the Asian shipbuilding countries like Japan, Korea and China. He experienced shipbuilding economic cycles while he was in Korea during supervision as well as when he is back in APL.


INTRODUCTION

Shiptek 2009 focuses on innovation. As we all know, necessity is the mother of invention, and there are many drivers of innovation, including: Reducing costs Increasing (fuel) efficiency Saving the environment Saving lives Creating value (better products/services/etc)

But nothing will happen without people. We need people to think of and develop new ideas; and people to implement them; and people to appreciate the resulting benefits. Hence the need to take a good hard look at manpower.

This presentation will look at some ideas (something old; something new) regarding manpower in the marine industry. But before that, we should take a look at where we are at present; at what is good and what is not so good about current human resource management.

THE GOOD

Compared to 40, 30 or 20 years ago, we certainly have better facilities for training, educating, and generally for developing our people. Although in some parts of the world, things are still fairly backward; on the whole, we have better and more conducive teaching facilities, and more advanced equipment.

We have better qualified teachers, at least in terms of having formal qualifications. Quality systems in many organizations and institutions ensure that qualifying standards are set and met. In many cases, teachers also go through training in pedagogy.

Innovation in HRM – The Good, The Bad, and… Some Food For ThoughtPaper presented at Shiptek 2009, SingExpo, 7 May 2009

Teh Kong LeongExecutive Director, SMF

In many places, we have elaborate quality systems in place to ensure that standards are met and proper procedures followed, whether it is in respect of coverage of syllabus, how training is to be conducted, or how assessments are to be carried out.

We have a whole lot more oversight exercised within the industry, by flag states, port states, charterers, insurers/P&I, and even customers. There are so many inspectors and inspections and audits. And we certainly have a lot more regulation, whether it’s from the IMO, or classification, or industry, with wider coverage including safety, environmental protection and security.

There is a lot more use of advanced technology, in the design of ships and structures, in simulation, in operations, in building and construction, and in communications; and, of course, in teaching.

Fortunately, in spite of all the advances, we still have “hunger” in the world. In many parts of the world, we still have real hunger where people see a position in the marine industry as a stepping stone to a better life. Even in the more affluent parts, there still are those who aspire to go to sea or to join other parts of the industry.

THE BAD

Unfortunately, we continue to have more accidents, incidents, breakdowns, and higher insurance claims. And, lo and behold, the primary cause of these is still the human factor.

One of the factors contributing to this unfortunate trend is the severe shortage of professionals and qualified people at many levels, ashore as well as afloat. This has been more keenly felt in the recent boom years. The


wonderful thing about the industry is that, despite the acute shortage (and one very clear sign was the absence of seafarers looking for jobs at Lunetta Park in Manila), there were hardly any reported cases of ships being stranded because of shortage of seafarers. One can just imagine phantom seafarers or phantom certificates of competency floating around.

Seafaring has traditionally been seen as casual employment, with seafarers signing on and off ships, and going from company to company. There have, of course been exceptions, particularly among the more established and well-known companies, where seafarers tend to stay on a longer term basis. Unfortunately, the trend has been towards third-party ship and crew management, and fewer and fewer shipowners managing their own ships and recruiting and training their own seafarers. Furthermore, many of the famous old names in shipping have disappeared. Under the circumstances, it is inevitable that short term thinking becomes the norm, with seafarers and managers just thinking about getting the ships moving from place to place, and not being concerned about the longer term interests of the owners. It gets even worse in a crew-shortage situation, with seafarers not even having to be concerned about their performance or reputation.

When seafarers (and increasingly, even those ashore) are treated as casual labour, we cannot expect any sense of loyalty. Where loyalty does not exist, how can there be any trust? And without trust, how can any organization survive?

Real knowledge comes from experience. As a simple example, how does a child learn about the dangers of fire without getting burned? We come into this world with practically nothing, and learn through exploring the world. Unfortunately, experience does not seem to be widely valued. We keep on hearing about retrenchment of older workers (even people in their 30s are considered old), and employers favouring younger ones. So what we are doing is removing the real knowledge and experience and getting younger people to make (the same) mistakes and learn (the same old lessons) at our expense. Even though we are going backwards, we call this “progress”.

Today, when someone stays in the same company (or worse, in the same job) for a few years, he/she would be considered “dead wood”. “Job-hopping” is no longer a derogative term. There are, of course, many reasons

why people might want to change jobs/employers, but learning a new job takes time and to be really good at it takes a bit more time. There is, of course, value in job rotation but the length of a stint should be sufficient to test and see the results of a person’s performance, and for that person to learn and understand enough about the job and that part of the organization.

In many places today, there is little sense of pride in one’s work. A ship costs millions of dollars to build but has a shipyard warranty of only one year. It would be alright if quality standards were fine. This is, however, not the case. Most responsible shipowners need to employ teams of supervisors to ensure that the ships are properly built and, even then, it is common to hear of breakdowns during delivery voyages, caused by poor workmanship or even design. Tar epoxy used to be commonly applied as coatings in ballast tanks and these would last about 10, 15 or even more years before failure. Nowadays, we are supposed to have better coating products but they often fail in less than half the time. We need a quality culture, and workers and supervisors who are proud of their work and themselves. Unfortunately, this is not the case and many organizations and their people would be quite happy to “get it over with”, collect payment and move on. Where is the sense of professionalism, ethics or morality when ships are sent to sea with known defects, and crews often have to conduct “cover-up” operations when encountering inspectors? Some of these crews then “blow the whistle” to local authorities and collect a reward when the owners/managers are convicted.

There is widespread lack of knowledge and experience within the industry, based on feedback from surveying organizations, shipmanagers and seafarers. Changes in design and construction of machinery and equipment are taking place very quickly, and there is often inadequate time for proper testing or to train all involved in their proper operation, maintenance and trouble-shooting. Because of the shortage of people, most are promoted very quickly without gaining the necessary experience and knowledge. Even rules and regulations (coming from different quarters – the IMO, regional blocs, individual states, industry) are changing so quickly that the industry is finding it difficult to cope, let alone try to understand and be persuaded as to their objectives. This gives rise to more skepticism and cynicism.


SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT

MotivationMotivation can be a very powerful force but unfortunately has very much been forgotten. Many children struggle with schoolwork but few have difficulty using the computer without any help or instruction. Avid golfers think little about waking up at 5 am to catch an early (golf) flight, but would complain if asked to get up at 7 for work. We should therefore be more focused on getting people to be motivated about, and to have pride in their work; about learning/training in order to be able to do a better job. No amount of “As” in academic results can compensate for a lack of motivation. In selecting fresh recruits or qualified officers, or even in selecting students, identifying those with the right motivation is the key challenge. With the right motivation, practically everything can be learnt and no obstacles are insurmountable.

Permanent Employment/Continuous DevelopmentThere ought to be a certain permanency, and security in employment, with incentives for staying and improving. Real knowledge and experience should be valued. The days of automatic salary increments are probably numbered, as they should be, but there should be reward for improvement in capability - not just to deal with the routine, but more to be able to deal with surprises and uncommon challenges. Experience is required for effective risk management, just as one needs to mature to avoid life’s pitfalls. People must be incentivized to continue working to improve themselves and often even non-monetary recognition can be very effective.

Code of ConductThis is as important for individuals (professional conduct) as it is for organizations (corporate governance/corporate social responsibility). We need to bring back professionalism and the strong desire to do one’s best and to have a good reputation for that. There needs to be strong quality standards for all sectors of the industry, and people must be motivated towards achieving, and even surpassing those standards instead of merely paying lip service or putting on a “wayang”.

Authentic LearningMuch of education and training today is still based on memorizing facts and regurgitating them at the examinations, in order to qualify for certificates or

degrees. This is very much a waste of time and effort (by students and teachers) as the computer can do a much better job at storing and retrieval. Furthermore, it is a demotivating and dehumanizing process for most involved, and certainly does not prepare people for life or the jobs they are to do. Authentic learning is a step in the right direction – where students are given real-life challenges/tasks and learn as they tackle these. The key element here again is motivation, without which students (and teachers) will just go through the process, without achieving much real learning.

MentoringWhen experts leave the scene, their knowledge and experience disappear as well. This is both sad and silly, as the succeeding generation tries to learn the same again through “the school of hard knocks”. Why does each generation have to go through the same pain and suffering? Just as disciples seek out the venerable kung-fu master, we should have recruits and juniors seeking out the experienced engineers and navigators to be mentors, to guide them as they progress up the professional ladder.

Reward LoyaltyNo organization can survive where there is no loyalty from the staff, or where the staff do not trust the organization and cannot be trusted to do what is good for the organization. This needs to be recognized and one way is to reward loyalty. But loyalty does not mean just staying in the same company for a long time – this would then include dead wood. Staff must have a positive interest in the well-being of the company and act in the interest of the company, including looking after the assets of the company.

Account for Most Valuable AssetsMost organizations would profess that their most valuable assets are their people. In some cases, people are practically their only assets. yet, you would not see this asset class in their balance sheets. How can this be acceptable to the stakeholders? How can this be good corporate governance? One of the obvious outcomes of this lacuna is that people are not actually valued, and companies do not account for their loss or gain. This needs to be corrected, and this very important asset needs to be valued and accounted for in the balance sheets.

Technical Papers


ABSTRACT

Marine shipping is a huge industry, holding the responsibility of transporting more than 90% of the trade around the world thus with great influence on the global economy. International shipping is found, however, guilty of contributing significantly to the environmental pollution. Over the past decades, the excessive emission of SO

X, NOX and other pollutants has negatively affected the marine life, environment and the human health. As global shipping is estimated to keep growing over the next decades, control and reduction of marine emissions is an essential task which requires immediate attention. Despite the introduction of number of technologies, some techno-economical hurdles have hampered their widespread acceptance and implementation for large scale commercial applications. This paper reviews the issues and provides the latest updates concerning the marine emissions and their impact on environment. Some of the past, present and future trends in control, limiting and regulating the emissions will be discussed. The available options, potential solutions and challenges in tackling the marine emissions will be addressed from the perspective of various parties involved.

1. INTRODUCTION

Clean air, comprised mostly nitrogen and oxygen and several other gases constitute an essential part of a healthy environment. The air becomes polluted when concentration of some of the components exceed certain limits or is contaminated with certain substances. The polluted air is well known for causing a variety of undesirable effects on human health and environment. This has received great attention and attempts have been made, especially in the recent decades, for better understanding of the causes and effects of air pollution

Marine Emissions: Issues, Challenges and Potential Solutions

and identification of various approaches to control and minimize its adverse effects.

2. EMISSIONS IN MARINE ENVIRONMENT

Today, the shipping industry plays an important role in global trade and economy. About 90% of the goods across the world are transported over sea; mostly due to the high energy efficiency of the ships. However, ships and other marine vessels contribute to air pollution and environmental degradation through the exhaust emitted from their engines. Among various environments, marine environment has been found to be more vulnerable and sensitive to the adverse effects of air pollution. The emissions from the ships not only affect the marine environment, but its adverse effects are also extended to coastal areas. In fact besides pollution caused due to human activities, naturally occurring pollution is also responsible for damage to the environment.

The adverse effects of marine emissions on the environment and human health are numerous. Oxides of sulphur (SO

X) and Oxides of nitrogen (NOX), among other components of shipping emissions cause acidification of ecosystems, with more severe effects in coastal areas[1]. SOX and NOX are also identified as important sources for generation of sulphate and nitrate particulate matters (PM). Exposure to these fine particles can result in a number of deadly diseases including cardiovascular diseases. The lung and heart diseases caused due to marine emissions are found responsible for the death of about 60,000 people in 2002. This is estimated to increase by 40% till 2012 in conjunction with the increasing trend of global shipping traffic[2]. Additionally, depositions of NOX from shipping emission have significant negative effects on the biodiversity and damage both vegetation and human health through the eutrophication process and formation

Seyed Saeid HOSSEINIResearch Engineer, Keppel Offshore & Marine Technology Centre (Oil & Energy Industry)


of ground–level ozone. The material degradation process is accelerated in the presence of high levels of ozone, SOX and NOX. Ships also produce relatively substantial amount of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) due to the use of heavy fuel oil. The overall damage due to marine emissions on human health, environment, and buildings is estimated to be about €2.7 billion (US$4 billion). Thus, it can be realized that the shipping emission has become a big issue and expected to go worse, if no mitigating action is taken.

In fact, shipping industry has been facing challenges in solving the marine emissions. Challenges range from the emission quantification and measurement, formulating suitable regulations and timelines, enforcement of legislation to finding practical yet economic solutions to tackle emissions. The increasing number of R&D programs initiated by the governmental and private organizations can clearly confirm the increasing trend. This has been driven partly due to the commitments made for environmental protection and also the need for establishment of a sustainable marine industry. One may be able to describe these activities in the key areas of marine emission measurement, conceptual design and development of technological mechanisms and solutions with desired performance. The ultimate goal is to develop or identify practical while cost-effective methods or technology that can attract the attention of parties in marine industry. It should be noted that these programs have, thus far resulted in development of number of technologies for treatment of various components of exhaust gas emitted from marine vessels. In recent years, more studies have been conducted focusing on estimation of shipping emissions and pollution inventories on regional and global scales[3,4,5]. Efforts have been made toward developing methodologies that can quantify the marine emissions and estimate their environmental impacts. For example, in 1993, ships were found to contribute to about 15% and 5-8% of the total nitrogen and sulphur emissions, respectively, through their combustion sources. Developed methodologies were found useful in updating the marine emission inventories. However, newer estimates indicate doubling value for NO

X and CO2 emissions. In addition, a 50% more emission is estimated for SOX compared to its earlier estimates.

It should be highlighted that liquid fossil fuel is anticipated to remain as the major source of energy for marine vessels for at least a next few decades. Nonetheless, in recent

years, marine industry has been actively participating in attempts for finding better alternatives. Studies and trials on the feasibility of employing renewable sources such as solar and wind energy are numerous. According to some experts, although these methods may not be able to supply the entire energy required by the engines, promising results have been found for their application to support part of the vessels’ power requirements. Another example is the nuclear energy which despite the technical feasibility, its widespread implementation for marine vessels has been hampered due to the high cost. In addition to the improvements in ship components such as propeller and hull designs to increase propulsion efficiency, some operational techniques such as fuel blending and lowering the speed of the ship are currently being experimented and found effective in reducing the emissions.

3. MARINE EMISSION REGULATIONS

As the societies’ concerns about the emissions increase, the rules and regulations need to be updated regularly to ensure establishment of better environmental protection policies. Achieving the ultimate goal of reduction in emissions requires global agreements and joint efforts between various parties involved in shipping industry including ship designers, engine manufacturers, ship owners, shipbuilders, classification societies and regulatory organizations. Efforts have been made, at regional and international levels to set suitable guidelines for control and reduction of marine emissions. The International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) MARPOL (Annex VI) and other regional legislations such as EU Directives and US EPA policies are some of the regulations developed so far. It is anticipated that enforcement of these regulations will significantly improve the current situation as more than 100,000 of world’s fleet of merchant ships in terms of their emissions as about 60% of this fleet are the ships above 400 gross tonnes (GT) that mostly use heavy fuels as source of energy. For example, based on some statistics, the enforcements of Annex VI can result in about 30% reduction in worldwide NO

X emissions compared to the levels recorded in 1992.

MARPOL Annex VI is a set of principal legislations ratified by IMO for regulating harmful air emissions in marine environment. The Annex VI includes the regulations for the prevention of air pollution from ships. It covers a number of different key pollutants including oxides of sulphur (SOX), oxides of nitrogen (NOX), particulate


matters, ozone depleting substances and volatile organic compounds. Other substances are potentially to be included in the annex. It also specifies the limits and requirements that marine vessels must comply. MARPOL Annex VI, adopted in 1997 and has been signed off by the flag States of some 49 countries (listed on the IMO website at www.imo.org) constituting almost 75% of world tonnage and has been into force since May 2005. Since then it has gone under major amendments and revisions in response to the need for further improvement in air quality. The changes have been mainly focusing on progressive reduction of SO

Xand NOX emissions. The latest of these revisions was made during the last meeting of Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) held in October 2008. The IMO rules cover all new ships (or major retrofits) built after January 1, 2000, with engines rated greater than 130 kW. According to Annex VI, fixed and floating platforms, including drilling rigs and similar structures are considered as ships, except in respect of those emissions to the atmosphere resulting directly from operations solely related to their drilling, production or processing functions. Vessels liable to prevailing IMO regulations are required to adopt a suitable strategy among the proposed options in order to meet the requirements. The Annex VI requirements will also apply to ships of non-signatory States while operating in waters under the jurisdiction of parties to the protocol. Ships are to adopt a suitable strategy from among the options including switch to alternative fuels or the ones with a higher quality, retrofit the existing equipments or install additional equipments such as abatement systems to meet the requirements.

The MARPOL Annex VI, initially set a global cap of 4.5% sulphur content for the bunker fuels to be used in ships. Later few geographical regions such as North Sea and Baltic Sea were introduced as sulphur emissions control area (SECA) wherein further limitations (1.5% S) were enforced. This is due to the fact that diesel engines of the ships have been found to contribute as much as 30% of the SO

X content in coastal areas[3]. In order to qualify to enter the SECA area, ships shall fulfil at least one of the following conditions stated in SOX clause:

• Thesulphurcontentofthefueloilonboardtheshipsshould not exceed 1.5% m/m;

• Anapprovedexhaustgascleaningsystem(forbothauxiliary and main propulsion engines) to be installed to limit the total emission of sulphur oxides to regulated

levels. The waste streams of such systems shall be treated and discharged based on the governing criteria.

• Adoption of any other verifiable and enforceablemethod that can reduce the emissions and give marine vessel the opportunity to meet the regulations.

Baltic Sea was the first of its kind introduced as SECA area and the rules came into effect in 2006. Further, due to the successful results, North Sea and English Channel were declared as SECA regions in 2007. Discussions are underway that other areas such as west of the British Isles, west of continental Europe, US coastal waters and the Mediterranean may be expected to join SECAs. In addition the SECA areas are further extended to ECA (Emission Control Area) that included limitations with respect to the NO

X and potentially other pollutants.

One of the major issues regarding the implementation of the equivalent sulphur content in fuel has been its potential role in accentuating the prevalent disputes over the inconsistency in ordered and delivered fuels among the fuel buyer and supplier and inspector would be more pronounced. In addition, some discussions are underway indicating that the sulphur content of the fuel is to be tested with an accuracy of two decimals (i.e., 0.01%) and which will be used in imposing penalties if exceeding the specified limits. yet, it needs to be specified whether the fuel supplier or the operator would be responsible in case any breach to the regulations is made.

In recent years, more attention have been paid to the necessity to eliminate the NO

X emissions and to prevent the dispersion of particulate matters. This has been reflected in Annex VI and updated revisions include rules and regulations for control of NOX and PMs. Emission standards for NOX were also defined including the engines with power output of greater than 130kW. The NOX emission limits are regulated for new engines and categorized in a three tier system. Tier I is aimed to cover the current limits in MARPOL Annex VI, the Tier II is set to reduce the NOX emissions based on the latest developments in engine design and technology. It is expected to achieve 15-25% reductions by this Tier. However, Tier III is set-up to impose further limits on the NOX emissions through further developments in engine technology or employment of suitable NOX abatement system. It is deemed that 2011 and 2015/16 would be appropriate timelines for implementation of Tier II and


III. However, these are subject to review by MEPC committee. Although the Tier system is set-up for new engines, yet the issue for existing engines (built before 2000) remain unsolved. Although some of the engines are technically feasible to be modified for emissions reductions, some of them may face difficulties due to issues like unavailability of the parts or some of the manufacturers are going out of existence.

4. TRENDS IN TACKLING SOX EMISSIONS Marine fuels are typically blends of residuals produced as by product of the crude oil processing. Therefore marine fuels are ranked as one of the lowest quality and worst in terms of highest levels of sulphur content. Despite the low energy value, the low price premium has resulted in the dominance of the heavy fuels in marine industry. It should be noted that the current global consumption of marine fuel is about 369 million metric tonnes per annum. Bunker fuel constitutes about 78% of the total fuel consumption mainly used for the ships above 400 GT. It is estimated that the total fuel consumption by ships will growth more than about 30% by 2020. However, the share of heavy fuel oil is expected to remain at the same level of about 78% (~382 million MT). In other words, these figures indicate the expected rise in total sulphur emissions from the current value of about 16.2 million MT to about 22.7 million MT by 2020 per annum.

The concerns about emissions of sulphur oxides are of the highest importance among the others. SO

X are comprised of various oxides of sulphur, and in particular SO2 and SO3, derived from burning of various kinds of sulphur species present in fuels. SOX emissions are responsible for acidification of groundwater and other adverse effects to the environment. Basically, there exists a direct relationship between the sulphur content of the fuel and the amount of SOX emitted in the exhaust gas. The problem arises when these fuels, containing majority of the sulphur species found in the crude, are combusted.

Basically, two key approaches have been proposed for tackling the SOX emissions: one is through the elimination of sulphur from the fuel (i.e., Emission Prevention Approach). Whereas another one is through capturing the sulphur species in the form of SOX from the exhaust gas (i.e., Emission Abatement Approach) which are discussed here.

The use of marine fuels with low sulphur content has been one of the most direct steps toward tackling the SOX emissions. Designation of SECA areas are examples of implementation of such approach. According to IMO, the switch from current fuel with global average sulphur content of 2.7% to marine distillate (0.5% S) can potentially cut the SOX emissions by about 78 % over the next decade. However, some challenges have yet prevented the widespread implementation of using fuel with low sulphur content. Despite the advances in desulphurization technology, this process is still very complex, energy intensive and costly. Therefore, low sulphur fuels are generally of the high price premium in the market. This is one of the most important factors as fuel costs are of the primary expenses of ocean transportation.

Another serious concern is that the refineries may not be ready to process and supply the required amount of fuels with desired specification. This is partially related to the fact that refineries hesitate to put huge amount of investments to upgrade the quality of the marine fuels. Refineries, in fact, would be more comfortable to spend this investment on other sectors or products with higher profits than on bunker fuel. The product of the fuel desulphurization process is a light product which is mostly desirable for blending with distillate fuels rather than just being used as marine fuel. More thoughts would also be required on the obstacles in handling and disposal of the huge amount of heavy sludge left over after upgrading the bunker fuels. Refineries are expectedly to refrain from paying additional costs for separating this sludge that otherwise could be sold as a component of the bunker fuel. Also it would be a tedious task for bunker industry to implement the stringent quality control with potential risks for non-compliance with prevailing regulations. Comprehensive studies have been carried out on the economics of reducing the sulphur levels in marine fuels[6,7] In addition, achieving this target also requires more new refineries with larger capacities to be constructed to meet the required capacity. The additional carbon footprint of refineries especially considering the current carbon credit market also needs to be addressed.

Currently, by the adoption of a few strategies, it has been possible to extend the supply quantity of the low sulphur fuels. Among these methods, fuel blending has been one of the simplest techniques with the least costs (price premiums: €10-16 Euro/ton) mostly contributed


by the logistics. In comparison, fuel desulphurization is very costly (with price premium: €50-90/ton in 475-135/ton) largely due to the substantial investments in refinery facilities[6].

Overall, despite its attractive features and promising trend, it is less likely that reduction in sulphur content is used to solve the emissions problem, at least for the near future. Some vessel owners are now considering securing low sulphur fuel contracts for their operations. This requires a proper strategy for fuel management and also familiarization with the effects of fuel switch on engine operation, performance, maintenance and longevity. The fuel switching option requires retrofitting and additional equipments along with the necessary piping onboard ships. It should be noted that retrofitting of the ships to accommodate the fuel switching would bring additional costs to the owner including the time lost during the docking and also the labour cost. These expenses may be minimized if the retrofitting operation coincides with the ship maintenance period. Ships typically have a number of segregated storage tanks but allocation of separate tanks for residual, distillate and low sulphur fuels seems to be necessary. Some owners have specified design and allocation of extra space for low sulphur fuel tanks in their new vessels to be constructed. Some other concerns have been raised, especially about the change in lubricity of the fuel and its potential damage to the engine parts, fuel delivery and injection with respect to its thermal properties, fuel compatibility during the switching process and high vulnerability of the engine parts to wear.

The use of the special additives has been claimed as a potential effective method for the SO

X reduction from the ships. This technology is based on addition of additives (typically in the ranges of <~5-10% or less) containing functional elements like calcium that can react with sulphur species of the fuel and convert them to the sulphate form. However, this technology has only been applied for SOX reduction from the FCC unit in refineries by using some commercialized products (such as SOXGETTERTM, SOXMASTER, etc.). Although removal efficiencies of up to 99% for refinery applications have been reported, the viability of this approach for marine vessels needs to be verified.

The role of technology in solving the marine emissions has been more pronounced in provision of abatement systems such as scrubbers that are capable to capture

some of the pollutants from the exhaust gas. This method has been widely used for power plants onshore but considerations have been made to apply the concept to the ships by accounting for their mobile nature and limited access.

On this basis, two major configurations open- and close-loop have been developed to suit the shipboard applications. The open-loop configuration is based on the circulations of seawater followed by treatment and discharge to the sea. On the other hand, the close-loop system operates based on the use of fresh water functionalized by addition of typically an alkaline agent, such as caustic soda.

Seawater scrubbing is most widely used due to the obvious advantage of availability of seawater. Several trials have been carried out in various regions and reduction efficiencies of up to about 95% have been achieved. In conjunction with SO

X, the system can substantially reduce the particulate matters. Efforts have been made to improve the capability of the system by using other chemicals such as alkaline solutions. These systems essentially provide greater efficiencies through more effective interaction with SOX, subsequently smaller footprint and less energy consumption. However, yet there remains concerns on the possible side effects of handling and discharge of waste water produced in the course of the process on the ecosystems. This issue has been discussed in MARPOL Annex VI and ships must follow the guidelines to meet the requirement for proper treatment and discharge of the waste streams. In fact, all proposed scrubbing systems need to be approved according to the rules described in MARPOL Annex VI.

The scrubbing process inherently possess relatively high efficiency (90~95%). Demonstrations have revealed that integrating a scrubbing process to the exhaust gas of a marine engine burning 4% sulphur content fuel can provide results equivalent to the use of fuel with 0.2% sulphur content. The capability of the scrubbers in removing the particulates is an additional advantage, though at the expense of additional equipment required for waste water treatment. However, in some cases, the existing facilities for oily water treatment may be used or retrofitted for this purpose.

It should be noted that the major costs for scrubber systems are associated with the investments, power, chemical costs and sludge treatment/disposal.


Despite the attractive features of scrubbing process, still there exist some issues that have hampered the widespread applicability of this technique. One is the space constraints, especially for retrofitting of existing ship, due to the large footprints that would be required in order to handle the large flow of the exhaust gas in marine vessels. In addition, inevitable vessel motions, even at moderate sea states can potentially cause some operational problems for the scrubber system. Essentially, almost all the scrubbers are advised to be constructed from the exotic materials, such as titanium, that can withstand the high acidity of the solutions. The high temperature of the process has accelerating effect on the degradation of materials.

5. TRENDS IN TACKLING NOX EMISSIONS NOx emissions are essentially various forms of nitrogen oxides which their negative impact on the environment has attracted attentions. The NOX is mostly of NO whereas NO2 constitutes only about less than 10%. In contrast to SOX, NOX emissions are almost independent of the fuel (despite the small percentage of nitrogen molecules in fuels) and are produced due to the exposure of air to the very hot temperature of the combustion process. The NOx formation is accelerated as the temperature rises and this has been one of the limiting factors for enhancing the energy efficiency in engines by increasing combustion temperature.

Similar to SOX, two basic approaches of prevention and abatement have been proposed for tackling NOX

emissions. Advocates of NOX prevention approach have recommended the idea employing alternative mode of energy generation technologies such as fuel cell that can effectively provide energy without requiring any combustion process. Despite its attractive features, this technology has been viable only for submarines and further developments would be required to extend the application to ships.

Another area of interest for prevention of NOX formation has been through engine modifications. Engine manufacturers have made efforts including geometrical optimization of the combustion chambers, identification of the best injection configurations and adjustment of engine valve and injection timing with ultimate goal of promotion of high mixing efficiency and minimization of temperature peaks.

Despite the advances in engine technology, still one of the key challenges is finding optimum parameters that can reconcile advantageous features of various configurations into one design. Despite the attractive features of engine modification technique, this approach seemingly cannot provide an immediate solution to the NO

X problem as implementation of improved engines to the old fleet of marine vessels requires quite long time with substantial investment.

Elevated temperature of the combustion process is one of the key causes of the NOX formation. Thus, the use of water and some other selected additives have been recommended to reduce this temperature. Water can be blended with fuel beforehand, to form emulsified fuel or to can be injected simultaneously with fuel into the combustion chamber. The preparation of the stable emulsified fuel plays the key role in this technology. This is typically achieved through the use of emulsifiers to promote the miscibility of oil and water. Another way to tackle this problem is preparation of emulsified fuel right before injection[8]. Basically the explosion of small water droplets can enhance the mixing of fuel and combustion air thus the reduction efficiency is directly proportional to the amount of water in the fuel. Trials on medium and heavy-duty marine engines have shown NOX and PM reductions efficiencies of up to 50% and 80%, respectively. The water injection technology is relatively of low cost, especially for installation, compared to other counterparts. Of the major concerns that have hampered the widespread application of this technology are increased fuel consumption, modification of engine and changes in fuel injection timing[9].

Alternatively, water can be introduced in the form of humid air. Of the merits of the humid air motors (HAM) technology are relatively low operating cost, high NOX reduction efficiency and performance independent from other parameters such as fuel type and engine workload[10]. The even distribution of the moisture in the combustion chamber contributes to the NOX reduction through reduction of hot spots in flame zone. However, the excessive amount of humidity may lower the efficiency of the oxidation process, with increased hydrocarbon and particulate emissions through uncombusted residual fuels. Some efforts have been made to improve the system by creating multiple injection points[11]. On the other hand, relatively large amount of hot water would be required to supply the humid air. The energy required for this heating is a concern. Other operational difficulties like


control of the combustion process at various loads and also control of the humidity level need to be resolved.

Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) is another method for reduction of NOX emissions and efficiencies as high as 90% could be achieved. The SCR technology is based on the decomposition of NOX into nitrogen, oxygen and water. This is accomplished through reaction of NOX with specific chemicals like urea or ammonia over the catalyst. The production of inherently benign products is of key merits of SCR technology. The SCR has been used for both new built and retrofitting of existing ships and can also replace the exhaust silencers.

One of the key concerns for SCR is the storage and handling of ammonia. One alternative for this problem has been the use of urea and its conversion into ammonia in the course of reaction. Nevertheless, considerations need to be taken as these consumable chemicals are required to be supplied to the vessel regularly to assure the operation. The catalytic process is rather complex requiring continuous process control to maintain the high efficiency. The ammonia slip due to the incomplete reaction is yet a great concern as it is very harmful to the environment. The SCR catalyst is very costly and vulnerable to the sulfur containing fuels and this imposes certain requirements for the quality of the exhaust gas entering the SCR system in terms of sulfur content. This generally can be achieved through limitations in sulfur content of the fuel or some sort of abatement to clean up the sulfur from the exhaust. The presence of the catalyst bed, naturally creates back pressure for the exhaust flow, which in fact negatively affects the engine performance.

5. CONCLUSIONS

The increasing concerns over the air pollutants in marine environment have attracted global attentions. This has resulted in many efforts targeting the reduction and control of emissions in shipping industry. The subject of environmental protection has been one of the key areas of focus at Keppel Offshore and Marine. Although, a number of approaches and technologies such as limiting the sulphur content of the fuels, engine modification, abatement systems, etc. have been proposed and practiced with some success, the ever-growing fleet size and the large diversity of marine vessels requires a proper strategy, planning and regulations to achieve the objectives with minimum adverse effects to the

industry. As part of the commitment for sustainable development, Keppel Offshore & Marine Technology Centre (KOMtech), has been looking for development of a suitable solution for tackling marine emissions with primary and special focus on SO

X, NOx and particulate matter (PM). In KOMtech’s view, the shipping industry needs to be prepared for the tough times in coming years, as the regulations are becoming more and more stringent and the current approach of using low-sulphur fuel is facing challenges due to the increase in demand and shortage of supply by refiners. As such low-sulphur fuel solution is not the preferred solution. Therefore, the post-combustion treatment of marine emissions (especially in case of SO

X, NOX and PM) is the focus at KOMtech and it is our mission to develop a viable technology with prominent features of high efficiency, small footprint and economical viability that can attract the ship owners and also meet the regulatory requirements.

REFERENCES

1. Directive 2002/80/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2001 on the limitation of emissions of certain air pollutants into the air from large combustion plants. OJL309, pp. 1-21. European Commission, Brussels, Belgium.

2. J.J. Corbett, J.J. Winebrake, E. Green, P. Kasibhatla, V. Eyring, A. Lauer, Mortality from ship emissions: A global assessment, J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 41 (2007) pp. 8512-8518.

3. J.J. Corbett, P. Fischbeck, and S. Pandis, Global nitrogen and sulphur inventories for oceangoing ships, J. Geophys. Res., 104:3 (1999) pp. 3457-3470.

4. K. Capaldo, J.J. Corbett, P. Kasibhatla, P. Fischbeck and S.N. Pandis, Effects of ship emissions on sulphur cycling and radiative climate forcing over the oceans” Nature, 400 (1999) pp. 743-746.

5. J.J. Corbett, H.W. Koehler, Updated emissions from ocean going shipping, J. Geophys. Res., 108:D20 (2003) 4650.

6. Beicip-Franlab (2002). Advice on the costs to fuel producers and price premia likely to result from a reduction in the level of sulphur in fuels marketed in the EU. European Commission Study C1/01/2002. Contract ENV. C1/SER/2001/0063.

www.europa.eu.int /comm/environment /air/background.htm#transport


7. Beicip-Franlab (2003). Advice on marine fuels. Potential price premium for 0.5% S marine fuels. European Commission Study C1/03/2003. Contract ENV. C1/SER/2001/0063.

www.europa.eu.int /comm/environment /air/background.htm#transport

8. Blue Skies Ahead for “WiFE on Demand” SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION Businessweek McGrow Hill 2008, February 4, 2008 ISSUE, Next Generation Green: Tomorrow’s Innovative Green Business Leaders

9. Marine Atmospheric Pollution in Canadian Waters, Polar Design Associates Inc., March 1996

10. Kågeson, P. (1999). Economic instruments for reducing emissions from sea transport. Air pollution and climate series No. 11. The Swedish NGO Secretariat on Acid Rain, Göteborg, Sweden.

www.acidrain.org11. G. Rideout, N. Meyer, Marine Vessel Exhaust

Emission Program: A study of the effects of multiple emissions reduction technologies on the exhaust emissions of marine diesel engines, (TP 14099E), Prepared for Transport Development Centre Transport Canada, By Emission Research and Management Division Environment Canada, April 2003

This paper is featured in this Journal courtesy of Keppel Offshore & Marine Technology Centre (KOMtech). This paper also appears in Technology Review 2009.


ABSTRACT

Skid truss, which is used to support and skid heavy structural blocks in Jurong Shipyard, is subject to high static and cyclic stresses during skidding process. Structural stability of the truss varies with position, weight distribution of the block, pulling forces and age of the structure. Vibrating wire strain gauges (VWSG) were used to monitor the structural health status of the skid truss because of its low profile design, the ability to resist corrosion and the comparatively more accurate and reliable measurements. Structural stress responses obtained from the real-time measurements using VWSG sensors were presented with discussions on the usefulness of these data in monitoring the structural performance during its operation. Potential application of this type of sensor for monitoring health status of other types of structure was discussed.

INTRODUCTION

Skid truss, which is used to transfer structural blocks, is subject to heavy loadings, environment corrosion, material aging and fatigue problem. Inspection reports show that welding defects were found after each operation and these defects are repaired to maintain the performance of the structure. However, this method is passive as it waits for defect to occur without understanding the structural integrity performance. The size of the skid truss is about 74.42m long and 36.0m wide. It consists of six transverse truss frame connected to two longitudinal truss frames. Each frame is supported by six columns, each connected to a skid shoe. The skid shoes will slide along two skid beams during skidding.

Structural Health Monitoring of a Skidding Truss Using Vibrating Wire Strain Gauge (VWSG)

Dr Lim Chin Lee B. Eng (Hons), MSc (Eng), PhDAssistant Section ManagerSembcorp Marine Technology Pte Ltd

The effectiveness of real-time structural health monitoring (SHM) was observed by Ren et al.[1]. They discovered that SHM is capable of assessing the health of offshore structures to provide advance warning of structural faults and minimizes the maintenance costs. Amano et al.[2] developed an SHM system for an advance grid structure with embedded fiber bragg grating sensors. Their proposed SHM system can automatically detect any existence of damage in the structure elements.

Vibrating wire strain gauges (VWSG) are promising sensing devices for SHM. They exhibit advantages such as reliable coupling of the gauge to the structural member, very low profile (usually less than 1mm), and corrosion protection. Osgerby et al.[3] selected VWSG for their long-term pile tests because of its long-term stability and the ease with which the measuring equipment can be disconnected and reconnected without error. DiBiagio[4] reported that his VWSGs in an excitation circuit have been vibrating for 27 years without failures. With these advantages, Leslie et al.[5] used VWSG to confirm the performance of their nuclear power plant structures after approximately 25 years of service. VWSG was also used for study of the creep behaviour of concrete samples under different stress and temperature conditions by Horby et al.[6].

The purpose of this paper is to present a set of SHM system applied in the skidding truss. The SHM system could transfer the sensor readings wirelessly through a GPRS modem for transmission to the internet. A similar type of wireless SHM system has been used by Kim et al.[7] for their tunnel measurement using VWSG. The SHM system for this project is installed to investigate


the stress variation during the operation. The measured data are compared against other engineering data. It can be concluded that VWSG sensor is an effective sensing method with high reliability, durability and corrosion protection that is suitable for application in marine and offshore structures.

DESCRIPTION

Structural Health Monitoring SystemSHM system basically contains a sensing unit, a data acquisition unit, and a post-processing unit, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Structural Health Monitoring System

Sensing Unit – VWSG

Figure 2: Vibrating Wire Strain Gauge

Figure 3: Strain Gauge Sensor

The spot-weld strain gauge (Figure 2) consists of a steel wire held in tension inside a metal casing. The metal casing it then welded onto the structural member. These strain gauges measure the strain in the structural member as any additional strain is transferred through the casing to the wire inside. An increase in tensile strain will increase the tension in the wire, and vice versa. Vibrating wire sensor (Figure 3) is placed atop the wire to initiate the collection of sensor readings, as it will cause the wire to vibrate with respect to its tension. This vibration of the wire within the magnetic coil in the sensor will introduce frequency signal which will be transferred to a data-logger.

Data Acquisition Unit – Data-Logger

Figure 4: Data-logger

The battery operated data-logger (figure 4) collect readings from each sensor and store in a memory card. The data logger converts the intended physical readings into electronic signals and then to binary data before transferring these signals to a software tool. These readings are then transferred to internet via a GPRS modem (see Figure 5).

VWSG1 VWSG1 VWSG1

DataLogger

DataHandling

Program

SensingUnit

DataAcquisitionUnit

Post‐ProcessingUnit

SteelWire

MetalCasing

Steel Wire

Metal Casing


Figure 5: Live transmission of sensor readings

Figure 6: Data Handling Function in MS Excel for Post-Processing of Data

Case 2:Vertical load: approx 12000 tonsHorizontal pulling force: approx 500 to 600 tons

Figure 7 & 9 show the stress variation of vertical structural member at three locations: forward, middle and aft for Case 1 and Case 2 respectively. It can be observed that the structural member at aft location experience the highest stress for both cases. The trends of stress variation for both cases are very close, with Case 2 delay in reaching its peak, simply because the process was

Post-Processing UnitA post-processing function was developed using Visual Basic Application in MS Excel Spreadsheet (Figure 6) for post-processing large amount of data recorded by data-logger.

RESULTS Case 1: Vertical load: approx 15000 tonsHorizontal pulling force: approx 500 to 600 tons


started at a later time. It can be noted that the stress experienced by the skid truss for both cases are of similar magnitude for forward location, but higher in Case 1 for middle location and higher in Case 2 for aft location. This could be due to the weight distribution of the skid truss. Relevant engineering data indicated that the centre of gravity of the loaded skid truss is near to the middle for Case 1, but the centre of gravity is approximately 2.82m aft from the middle for Case 2.

Figure 8 & 10 show the stress variation of horizontal structural member at three locations: forward, middle

and aft for Case 1 and Case 2 respectively. It can be observed that the structural member at middle location experience the highest stress for both cases. The trends of stress variation for both cases are similar.

When monitoring the health status, any stress value reaching 80% of the yield stress (355MPa for steel) should be taken extra precaution to prevent structural failure. It should also be noted that the cyclic stress range could provide useful information on the fatigue life of the structure.

Figure 7: Stress variation for vertical structural member (Case 1)

Figure 8: Stress variation for horizontal structural member (Case 1)


Figure 9: Stress variation for vertical structural member (Case 2)

Figure 10: Stress variation for horizontal structural member (Case 2)

CONCLUSION

By developing a structural health monitoring system, the structural performance of the skid truss can be monitored. Wireless data transmission eliminates the use of lengthy cable wires, which is very useful in the offshore environment. It can be concluded that VWSG sensor is an effective sensing method with reliability, durability and corrosion protection that is suitable for application in marine and offshore structures.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This study was performed under the project of “Structural Health Monitoring of a Skidding Truss” with Jurong Shipyard. The VWSG sensors, the data acquisition unit and the wireless data transfer system were developed and supplied by Maritime Research Centre, NTU.


REFERENCES

1. Liang Ren, Hong-Nan Li, Jing Zhou, Dong-sheng Li Li Sun, (2005), “Development of Health Monitoring System for Ocean Offshore Platform with Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors”, Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, pp. 424-428.

2. Masataro Amano, yoji Okabe, Nobuo Takeda and Tsuyoshi Ozaki, (2007), “Structural Health Monitoring of an Advanced Grid Structure with Embedded Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors”, Structural Health Monitoring 2007; 6; 309, pp. 209-324.

3. C. Osgerby, P.T. Taylor (1968), “Vibrating-wire Load Cell for Long-term Pile Tests”, Experimental Mechanics, Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield, pp. 429 – 430.

4. E.DiBiagio (2003), “A Case Study of Vibrating-Wire Sensors That Have Vibrated Continuously For 27 years”, Technical Notes of Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI).

5. Leslie M. Smith, Gary L. Brodt, Bryn Stafford (2001), “Performance Assessment and Reinstatement of Vibrating Wire Strain Gauges in Nuclear Power Plant Structures”, Transactions, SMiRT 16, Washington DC, Paper #1886.

6. I.W.Hornby and B.E.Noltingk (1974), “The Application of the Vibrating-wire Principle for Measurement of Strain in Concrete”, Experimental Mechanics, Central Electricity Research Laboratories, Leatherhead, pp. 123-136.

7. Kim Jung yeol, yoo Hyun Suk, Kwon Soon Wook, Cho Moon young (2007), “Development of Wireless Module for Tunnel Vibrating Wire Type Sensor”, 24th International Symposium on Automation & Robotics in Construction (ISARC 2007).

Dr Lim Chin Lee is currently working in Sembcorp Marine Technology Pte Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sembcorp Marine Ltd. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Leeds. He received a PhD degree on “non-linear dynamic analysis of flexible rotor system using finite element method”. He has experience from design and analysis of floating structures.

Organisation: Sembcorp Marine Technology Pte LtdAddress: 29 Tanjong Kling Road, Singapore 628054Email: [email protected]: 6262 8010


ABSTRACT

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Performance Standard for Protective Coatings (PSPC) applies to all ships with more than 500 GRT where the building contract was placed on or after 1 July 2008. This means that the IMO PSPC may be relevant for many Offshore Supply Vessels (OSV). This paper outlines the motivation and background for the IMO PSPC and describes its main elements. Furthermore, it discusses the main implications for shipyards and ship owners, in particular some of the implementation challenges in relation to OSVs.

INTRODUCTION

IMO has approved the Performance Standard for Protective Coatings (PSPC) of dedicated seawater ballast tanks in all new ships and of double-side skin spaces of large bulk carriers (2006). The IMO PSPC applies to all ships with more than 500 GRT where the building contract was placed on or after 1 July 2008. This means that the IMO PSPC may be relevant for many OSVs. The target useful coating life of the new requirements is that the coating system remains in GOOD condition for 15 years. The IMO PSPC specifies how coating systems are to be approved, how surfaces are prepared prior to coating and how the coating process is to be carried out and monitored. Furthermore, there is a requirement to document materials and process in what is called a coating technical file (CTF). To comply with the new requirements, shipyards are upgrading their production facilities and work processes.

The aim of this paper is to outline the motivation and background for the IMO PSPC and describe its main elements. Next, it will discuss the main implications for

Dr Jan Weitzenböck Helge Vold, Gisle Hersvik and Bjarne JansenDet Norske Veritas AS, Approval Centre Norway, 1322 Høvik, [email protected]

New IMO Requirements for Coating of Ballast Water Tanks: Challenges and Solutions

shipyards and ship owners. In particular it will discuss some of the implementation challenges in relation to OSVs. Finally examples of possible solutions for design and manufacture will be discussed.

MOTIVATION AND BACKGROUND FOR THE IMO PSPC

Some of the recent accidents with tanker such as Erika and Prestige triggered the development of new regulation to make these types of vessel safer. Structural design was improved by developing common structural rules for bulk carriers and crude oil tankers. At the same time new requirements for the corrosion protection of seawater ballast tanks were developed. In 1998, first regulation was put in place for coating of water ballast tanks: SOLAS Ch. II-1/Reg. 3-2 – Coating of ballast tanks. However, this was not followed up in the intended way and a new resolution was agreed upon in 2006 to impose stricter requirements on the coating activities in water ballast tanks.

• RESOLUTIONMSC.215(82),adoptedon8December2006: Performance Standard for Protective Coatings for Dedicated Seawater Ballast Tanks in all types of ships and double-side skin spaces of bulk carriers (PSPC)

• RESOLUTIONMSC.216(82),adoptedon8December

2006: implementation of MSC.215(82) in SOLAS Reg.II-1/3-2

As of 1st July 2008 the IMO PSPC applies to the protective coatings in dedicated seawater ballast tanks of all types of ships of not less than 500 GRT and double-side skin spaces of bulk carriers ≥ 150 m in length. Fishing vessels and naval craft are exempted from IMO PSPC.


Coating is now considered a safety issue. The main aim of IMO PSPC is to achieve a target useful life of 15 years. This is the time from initial application of the coating over which the coating system is intended to remain in “GOOD” condition. IMO PSPC defines “GOOD” condition as a surface having only minor spot rusting as defined in resolution A.744(18). IACS made this definition more specific in its procedural requirement PR 34. There it is stated that “GOOD” is defined as: Condition with spot rusting on less than 3% of the area under consideration without visible failure of the coating. Rusting at edges or welds, must be on less than 20% of edges or welds in the area under consideration. One example is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 New ballast water tank & in “GOOD” condition after 15 years

MAIN ELEMENTS OF THE IMO PSPC

The IMO PSPC (2006) specifies in Section 4.4 the basic coating requirements for protective coating systems to be applied at ship construction for seawater ballast water tanks and double-skin spaces for bulk carriers of 150 m in length and upwards.

Primary Surface PreparationSteel plates are to be blast cleaned to Sa 2½ (ISO 8501-1) and primed with a shop primer. The shop primer shall be of an inhibitor free zinc silicate type and shall be compatible and pre-qualified with the main coating system.

Secondary Surface PreparationOne of the main requirements is that sharp edges are removed from all free edges and rounded to a radius of 2 mm. Alternatively one can use three pass grinding. Intact shop primer may be retained if pre-qualified to be compatible with the coating system. Primer that is not prequalified has to be removed (at least 70%) by blast cleaning to Sa 2. Steel imperfections are to be treated with manual grinding to grade P2 according to ISO 8501-3. Damaged shop primers and along welds the surface is blast cleaned to Sa 2½. The surface cleanliness is assessed visually according to ISO 8501-1.

Surface Preparation After ErectionErection weld lines and damages to the coating after erection may be repaired manually for small damages up to 2% of the area under consideration. The required surface cleanliness is St3. For contiguous damages over 25m2 or more than over 2% of the area under consideration, blast cleaning to Sa 2½ is required.

Miscellaneous RequirementsIn addition to the process specific requirements there are also general requirements on the environmental conditions. Blast cleaning and painting shall be carried out at relative humidity of ≤ 85% and at surface temperatures 3°C above the dew point. The dew point is the temperature at which air is saturated with moisture. The conductivity of soluble salts on the surface is measured in accordance with ISO 8502-6 and ISO 8502-9, and compared with the conductivity of 50 mg/m2 NaCl. If the measured conductivity is less then or equal to the conductivity of 50 mg/m2 NaCl, then it is acceptable. All soluble salts have a detrimental effect on coatings performance. ISO 8502-9:1998 does not provide the actual concentration


of NaCl. The % NaCl in the total soluble salts will vary from site to site. Minimum readings to be taken are one reading per block/section/unit prior to applying.

Main Coating SystemThe coating system used is usually epoxy based with light colour. Epoxy based systems are used exclusively today, even though there are possibilities to qualify alternative systems. The prequalification of the system is documented by a Type Approval Certificate (TAC).

There shall be a minimum of two stripe coats and two spray coats, except that the second stripe coat, by way of welded seams only, may be omitted if it is proven that the NDFT can be met by the coats applied. Any reduction in scope of the second stripe coat shall be fully detailed in the CTF. Two stripe coats are applied prior to coating of the water ballast tanks. Stripe coating is painting of edges, welds, hard to reach areas, etc., to ensure good paint adhesion and proper paint thickness in critical areas. Stripe coats should be applied as a coherent film showing good film formation and no visible defects. The application method employed should insure that all areas that require stripe coating are properly coated by brush or roller. A roller may be used for scallops, ratholes etc., but not for edges and welds.

Two coats are applied with a nominal dry film thickness (NDFT) of ≥ 320 μm according to the 90/10 rule. 90/10 rule means that 90% of all thickness measurements shall be greater than or equal to NDFT and none of the remaining 10% measurements shall be below 0.9 x NDFT.

Items of Importance in the IMO PSPC• Coatingsystemapproval(sect.5*)• AnInspectionAgreementtobeestablished(sect.3.2*,

also required earlier)• A Coating Technical File (CTF) shall be prepared(sect.3*)

• Coating inspectionduringcoatingpreparationandapplication(sect.6*)

• Verification(sect.7*)

* Refers to the relevant section in the PSPC

MaintenanceIMO PSPC requires that all repair of the coating of the water ballast tanks is recorded in the CTF. IMO is currently preparing a guideline on how to carry out maintenance. It

is based on IACS Recommendation No. 87.

IMPLICATIONS FOR OSVS

The IMO PSPC has originally been conceived for large oil tankers. Hence, it comes as no surprise that it is not always straight forward to apply to Offshore Supply Vessels. One item that is receiving particular attention is the definition of the seawater ballast tanks. IMO PSPC applies to “dedicated” seawater ballast tanks. In many cases OSV’s have combined tanks that can also carry e.g. drilling fluids. To clarify this matter, IACS has submitted a unified interpretation to the IMO’s “Sub-Committee on Ship Design and Equipment” at its 52nd session (DE52) in March 2009 (2009a). Here IACS proposes that:

The following tanks are not considered to be dedicated seawater ballast tanks and are therefore exempted from the application and requirements of the IMO PSPC:

1. ballast tank identified as “Spaces included in Net Tonnage” in the 1969 ITC Certificate;

2. seawater ballast tanks in passenger vessels also designated for the carriage of grey water.

The proposal was considered at the DE 52. However, it is not quite clear what was actually agreed upon at the meeting (as of May 2009). A report by DE52 to the maritime safety committee (2009b) states that the Sub-Committee considered document DE 52/17/6 (2009a) and, having supported the interpretation in principle, agreed to take no further action on the matter. This does not seem to give an accurate picture of what was discussed. The report by the IACS representative present at the DE52 meeting (2009c) states that the plenary discussion was not very accurately documented in this statement. It notes that a number of delegates opposed the ‘derogations’ (as they were seen) especially for grey water tanks in passenger ships.

The IMO PSPC defines a minimum quality standard and it is quite possible to exceed these requirements if desired. The coatings used for combined ballast tank are known to be of higher quality than conventional corrosion prevention coatings for seawater ballast tanks. However, these coatings are not usually type approved according IMO PSPC.

In the absence of an agreed interpretation, most OSVs


are handled on a case by case basis where the status of the ballast tanks is agreed upon with the Flagstate. This is today’s praxis in Norway and DNV.

MAIN IMPLICATIONS FOR DESIGNERS, SHIPyARDS AND SHIP OWNERS

Consequences for Ship DesignerThe application of IMO PSPC is usually considered a production issue to be taken care of by the shipyard. However, as mentioned in Section 3 General Principles, subsection .3.2 of the IMO PSPC (2006), there are also many opportunities already in the design phase of a vessel to make coating friendly design that are easier to produce and maintain. The main focus should be towards reducing the length of free edges in ballast water tanks, accessibility of the tanks and the avoidance of complex joints within the ballast water tanks. Some of the ideas suggested here require optimisation of ship structures as changing frame spacing will lead to different scantlings such as plate thickness.

Free edges need to be rounded to a 2mm radius which can involve considerable manual work. By using fewer stiffener and using profiles that already have the correct radius a considerable amount of time may be saved.

Accessibility is often a problem in many BWT. Hence ensuring easy access not just for the painter but also their equipment will increase the quality and efficiency of the surface preparation, coating application and required quality control inspections.

By reducing the number of complex joints, the need for NDT inspection and documentation will be reduced considerably. Further reduction can be achieved by using fewer stiffeners as discussed above. NDT coating thickness inspection is manual task and therefore designers can reduce the time spent on NDT inspection by modifying their ship designs.

Consequences for ShipyardThere are a number of logistical and administrative tasks for shipyards. While there are already shipyards, in particular working for the offshore industry, that meet the technical requirements, there are few that already have suitable systems and procedures in place to meet the PSPC requirements for documentation.

Shipyards are required to prepare the inspection

agreement, and the CTF. A first draft of the CTF and the inspection agreement is required for the plan approval.

There is usually a need to upgrade the shipyards production system. Approved coating systems need to be specified, including compatible and approved shop primers. More work needs to be done on surface preparation with clear targets on cleanliness and surface roughness. Furthermore, 2 stripe coats need to be applied. In addition new coating halls may need to be built and additional qualified staff for coating is required, including certified coating inspectors.

Furthermore there are challenges regarding production planning, workflow and material selection: How can blocks be dimensioned to minimise congestion in the paint shop? Furthermore, one should re-assess the criteria for selecting coating systems to achieve the fastest production throughput.

Consequences for Ship OwnersShip owners will get an active role in maintaining the CTF while the ship is sailing. There is a requirement to maintain the CTF which has to be kept on board the vessel (see sections 3.4.3 to 3.4.5 in (2006)). IMO is finalising a guideline on how this could be done. The CTF shall be inspected by the Administration.

Standard paint specifications of ship owners will have to be adopted to make sure the coating system is type approved. Another requirement is to provide Permanent Means of Access (PMA) to facilitate inspection and maintenance of the water ballast tanks (2008). The PMA have to follow IMO PSPC for parts that are integral to the ship structure.

These measures may lead to an increases of the initial price of the vessel but is expected to result in reduced maintenance costs and possibly enhanced resale value. Furthermore, ship owners are better prepared for evaluation by Vetting and Rating agencies.

CONCLUSIONS

IMO PSPC will affect the way OSV’s are going to the built. While there are still some uncertainties as to which ballast tanks are to be include under the IMO PSPC it is clear that both shipyards and owners will be affected by the new requirements. While there are new requirements on workmanship it seems that the requirements to


document the coating process may turn out to be the most demanding challenge. It was also pointed out that there are opportunities to optimise ship designs to make them more coating friendly and thus cheaper to produce and operate.

REFERENCES

(2006) Resolution MSC.215(82) - Performance Standard for Protective Coatings for dedicated Seawater Ballast Tanks in all types of ships and double-side skin spaces of bulk carriers. IN COMMITTEE, M. S. (Ed. London, IMO.

(2008) MSC.1/Circ.1279 - Guidelines for corrosion protection of permanent means of access arrangements. London, IMO.

(2009a) DE 52/17/6 - Application of the Performance standard for protective coatings (PSPC) to tanks that are not dedicated solely to the carriage of seawater ballast Submitted by the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS). Sub-Committee on Ship Design and Equipment. London, IMO.

(2009b) DE 52/21 - Report to the Maritime Safety Committee. Sub-Committee on Ship Design and Equipment. London, IMO.

(2009c) IACS observer’s report on the 52nd session of the sub-committee on Ship Design and Equipment. London, IMO.

The subject paper was first published at the OSV Singapore 2009 Conference.


ABSTRACT

Recent major oil finds in the Russia Arctic region has led to a marked increase in exploration and production activities. Russian Government and Russian oil companies have invested heavily to make year–round export of oil and gas from the Barents and Pechora Seas a reality. Lukoil, in particular, is developing the Varandey terminal. Lukoil has ordered one dedicated icebreaker and one icebreaking standby/supply ship from Keppel Singmarine.

The dedicated icebreaker is capable of operating independently in the ice conditions. Built to RMRS LL7 notation, its main function is to perform ice channeling for tankers within the terminal area, assist in tanker maneuvering, mooring and loading. On the other hand the icebreaking standby/supply ship is capable of round operation within the area of the offshore oil terminal in the Barents and Arctic Seas. Built to RMRS LU 7 notation its main function is to perform ice channeling at the terminal area and limited ice escort services at the terminal area in the event that the icebreaker becomes unavailable. Operating ambient air temperatures are in the range +30°C to – 40 °C. Both ships were built to “Clean Design” standards. The paper describes some of the challenges faced by the Builder during the design and construction of the ships.

KEy WORDS: Russia; Icebreaker; Lukoil; RMRS, Keppel Singmarine.

INTRODUCTION

The proven oil reserve in Russia is about 70 billion barrels of which 10 billion barrels are located in the Barents and Pechora Seas region. This region is ice-bound for more

Tan Chenghui P. Eng, MSc, MRINA, FSNAMESResearch Consultant, KOMtech Marine Group

Design and Construction of Icebreakers for Operation in Barents Sea

than 6 months a year. However, this has not deterred E & P activities. The Timan–Pechora region contains more than 100 onshore oil fields. To get the oil to export markets the Russian Government and Russian oil companies have invested heavily to make year–round access to ice–bound oil terminals and year–round export of oil and gas from the Barents and Pechora Seas a reality. Companies like Lukoil and Gazprom have extensive development either already in operation or in the advance planning stage. Lukoil, in particular, is developing the Varandey Terminal to handle some of the oil produced in the Varandey area. To achieve this, Lukoil ordered two icebreakers (one dedicated icebreaker and one icebreaking standby/supply ship) from Keppel Singmarine and three 70,000 dwt oil tankers of the “double acting” type from South Korea shipbuilders.

Contract to build the two icebreaking vessels was awarded to Keppel Singmarine in April 2006. The contract was clinched amidst keen competition with European and Finnish yards on the basis of Keppel Singmarine’s strong track record in specialized shipbuilding as well as in establishing strong and valuable partnerships with our customers. Back in 2006 KOM was not yet established and Keppel Singmarine’s competency in ice mechanics was in its infancy. Keppel Singmarine had to partner ILS Oy, a well known Finnish Consulting Naval Architecture firm specializing in icebreaker design to strengthen our bid.

At the time of contracts signing, Keppel Singmarine was building two Ice-class Anchor Handling Tug/Supply (AHTS) vessels for LUKOIL scheduled for delivery in the first and third quarters of 2007.

Together with the contracts signing, Keppel O&M also signed a Co-operation Agreement with LUKOIL


to consider potential newbuildings of offshore rigs, special purpose offshore facilities and vessels to service LUKOIL’s offshore oil terminals vessels at the Keppel O&M shipyards.

OUTLINE REQUIREMENTS FOR VARANDEy TERMINAL ICEBREAKER

The dedicated icebreaker is a special-purpose standby and ice management vessel for year-round operations within the area of the offshore oil terminal in the Barents and Arctic Seas.

Function of the icebreaker is to provide year-round operations at the offshore oil terminal in the Barents Sea (Varandey Area, South-Eastern part of the Barents Sea) including ice channeling for tankers within the terminal area, assistance to the tanker in maneuvering, mooring, loading operations at the terminal, performing rescue and standby functions, firefighting capability, performing oil spill response operations, supply functions, performing underwater engineering and towing operations in the prevailing ice conditions.

The vessel was designed and built in accordance with the rules and under supervision of RMRS (Russian Maritime Register of Shipping) including applicable Rules and Regulations of the Russian Federation.

Vessel designed to make 3 knots continuous speed of advance in 1.7m of level ice with 20cm snow cover and capable of turning 180° in 3 minutes in 1.0 m of level ice. Maximum ice thickness at the terminal can be 1.7m with consolidation approaching 3 to 4 m thickness and 20m thick ridges. Vessel must be able to operate independently in these ice conditions without assistance. The terminal may be blocked or even surrounded with grounded ice rubble/ridges. Vessel will be required to perform ice management duties at the Terminal in order to maintain an easy path for shuttle-tankers approach and loading. Ice class must be not less than LL7 as per RMRS classification.

Navigation area – unrestricted. Autonomy as per provision & fresh water supplies – not less than 60 days.

Autonomy as per fuel supplies – not less than 30 days at the normal 60% capacity level.

Automation extent – according to A1 class as per RMRS classification.

Vessel equipment and systems shall be designed for water temperatures of + 20 to – 2 °C and air temperatures of + 30 to – 40 °C.

Powerplant is of diesel-electrical configuration. Powerplant capacity and propeller type were determined during design stage in accordance with the requirements of the classification society.

Vessel fitted with two azimuthing stern drives aft and twin bow thrusters. Azimuthing stern propulsors arrangement optimised for ice flushing operations. For environmental concern, all oil tanks are independent of vessel hull plating.

Loaded speed in deep waters at the 85% capacity of the shaft power at force-two wave disturbance and force-three wind not less than 15 knots. Draft suitable for operations at the sea depth up to 17m. Freeboard – minimum 2.5m. Beam not less than 21m.

According to its purpose, the ice-breaker shall supply the offshore terminal, and shall perform in particular the following:

• equipmentdelivery/removal;• freshwater&provisionsupply;• fuelsupply;• crewrotation;• liquid/soliddomestic&industrialwasteremoval.

Fuel Oil: 300m3 MGO/Diesel

Deck Area: about 500m2/500tonnes deck load

Deck arranged for transport and secure lashing of 20’ containers and 10’ containers

Fire fighting capacity – class Fi-Fi-1 (as per DNV notation). Vessel arranged with hoisting area for helicopter operations in accordance with International Chamber of Shipping Guide.


Special underwater hull painting using specially formulated coating.

Systems of gathering, processing and transfer of hydro-meteorological and ice information is provided.

Total domestic waste treatment on board the vessel is provided.

Temporary accommodation of up to 30 persons during rescue operations and first-aid equipment is provided.

For oil spill response readiness, vessel is fitted with one workboat, capable of towing oil boom (5tonnes bollard pull). Vessel is provided with crane for launching workboat, plumbing the hold and supporting oil spill recovery efforts. Crane is able to support 3tonnes while reaching maximum 5m outboard. Vessel has storage for 500m3 recovered fluids. Vessel provided with 20m3 oil dispersant fitted with a spray system for dispersant application from the both sides. Vessel provided with oil spill response equipment booms, skimmers and hot water and steam washing machines, etc.

The vessel is suitable for underwater operations in ice conditions – evidenced by the moonpool provided. The vessel is equipped by stern towing arrangements to take disabled tanker under tow.

The vessel is equipped by environmental equipment as per “Clean design” with “zero” pollution level.

OUTLINE REQUIREMENTS FOR VARANDEy TERMINAL ICE BREAKING STANDBy/SUPPLy VESSEL (requirements are generally similar to icebreaker’s except for below)

Providing year-round operation of the offshore oil terminal in the Barents sea (Varandey Area, South-Eastern part of the Barents Sea) including assistance to the shuttle-tankers in maneuvering, mooring, riding at the terminal, performing rescue and emergency functions, firefighting capabilities, performing oil spill response, supplying provision and delivering crew members, performing underwater engineering and towing operations. The standby vessel shall be capable of maintaining ice channel at the terminal area and shall be capable of limited ice escort services at the terminal area should ice

management vessel become unavailable.

The ice class shall be LU7 as per RMRS classification. The vessel shall be able to proceed through landfast ice having an unbroken thickness of up to 1.5m with 20cm snow cover with speed of between 2 to 3 knots.

Temporary accommodation of up to 12 persons during rescue operations to be provided.

Although not provided with a moonpool, the vessel is suitable for underwater operations by divers including in ice conditions.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHy

Keppel Singmarine partnered ILS Oy to develop the designs for the two ships to fulfil the owner’s requirements so that the ships can operate successfully in the arctic areas. The following main design criteria are as follow:

Icebreaker Hull Form and Ice ResistanceBased on the owner’s requirement that the icebreaker should meet RS Rules for LL7 notation and that the breadth of the vessel should not be less than 21m and also that the vessel should be able to break level ice of 1.7m thickness at a continuous speed of 3 knots, we designed the ship’s hull to be the most optimum for ice breaking duties and sea keeping characteristics. Accordingly, a length of 100m was determined.

The hull form was designed so that the ice resistance is smallest possible taking into consideration the multi-purpose nature of the ships. The ice performance of the ships has been designed so that the vessels can efficiently navigate in heavy ice at a speed of about 3 knots.

Roll damping is achieved by means of deep centreline box keel (500mm deep by 1000mm wide). Traditional bilge keels are not suitable for icebreakers. PropulsionMore Power – Greater flexibility: For such an icebreaker to cut through 1.7m thick ice at a continuous speed of 3 knots the minimum propulsion power required is about 17MW and the minimum diesel generator engine power required is about 22 MW (our calculations had been independently verified by VTT (Finnish Technical


Research Centre)). Any power less than this, although able to meet the (less stringent) RS rules for LL7 ice breaking class notation, would not be able meet all the requirements set by the owners. A smaller vessel and a smaller power plant could result in the icebreaker, if trapped in ice, to be unable to break out. (Note: RS rules for LL7 notation require a minimum propulsion power of only 11 MW). The technical specification also called for an open water speed of 15 knots. Extra care had to be taken when designing the propellers to meet the opposing requirements of icebreaking at low speed and transiting open water at high speed. See Shaft Power-Speed curve below.

Bollard PullAdequate bollard pull is an important feature of icebreaking ships therefore in addition to providing adequate propulsion power we have settled for relatively large propeller diameters and high over-torque characteristics of the propulsion systems. See Ice thickness-Ship speed curve below. When recommending a required bollard pull of 190tonnes, ILS has taken into account a 1 knot margin. From commercial and other technical considerations, Keppel Singmarine opted for a design bollard pull of 180 tonnes.

Figure 1: Shaft Power-Speed Curve

Figure 2: Ice Thickness vs. Ship Speed


Over-TorqueHigher Over-torque – Better Performance at Breaking Ice: Present day ice breakers are almost always of the diesel electric configuration. Diesel-electric configuration allows for better power management so that best possible system automation and redundancy can be achieved. All main diesel engines have their own cooling and fuel systems to ensure sufficient redundancy. It is also the icebreaker operators’ standard to provide for over-torque capability. Our design allows for 40% over-torque capability. Without any over-torque capability, once the propeller stalls during ice breaking duties the main generator engines will stall leading to dangerous consequences. The chosen 40% electric motor over-

torque adds considerably to the ships price but is the only sure way to make the ships operate successfully in heavy ice conditions. See below for Torque curve

Larger Fuel Tank CapacityConnected with the higher power proposed by us, the fuel oil capacity had to be increased proportionally. A ship which is smaller than the one proposed by us would not have enough space to accommodate the autonomy of fuel supplies as stipulated by the owners’ requirement. Also, for added protection from accidental oil spills, fuel tanks were located inboard of double side and double bottom spaces. This is especially important in the fragile Arctic environment.

28 Technology Review 2009

torque adds considerably to the ships price but is the only sure way to make the ships operate successfully in heavy ice conditions. See Figure 3 for Torque curve.

larger fuel tank capacityConnected with the higher power proposed by us, the fuel oil capacity had to be increased proportionally. A ship which is smaller than the one proposed by us would not have enough space to accommodate the autonomy of fuel supplies as stipulated by the owners’ requirement. Also, for added protection from accidental oil spills, fuel tanks were located inboard of double side and double bottom spaces. This is especially important in the fragile Arctic environment.

over-torqueHigher over-torque – Better Performance at Breaking ice: Present day ice breakers are almost always of the diesel electric configuration. Diesel-electric configuration allows for better power management so that best possible system automation and redundancy can be achieved. All main diesel engines have their own cooling and fuel systems to ensure sufficient redundancy. it is also the icebreaker operators’ standard to provide for over-torque capability. our design allows for 40% over-torque capability. Without any over-torque capability, once the propeller stalls during ice breaking duties the main generator engines will stall leading to dangerous consequences. The chosen 40% electric motor over-

Figure 3. Torque Curve

*Reverse rotation Motor output Propeller shaft Unit max. rpm 330 70 rpm max. torque 61 282 kNm

Motor output Propeller shaft Unit

Constant torque area 0...660 0...139 rpm max power 8400 8195 kW nominal torque 121 563 kNm max. torque 170 788 kNm

Field weakening area 660...840 139...178 rpm max power 8400 8195 kW

Bollard pull 677 143 rpm A

Propulsor input RPM

field weakening max. speed

nominal speed

nominal torquemax torque

Propulsor input torque

max reverse speed

max. reverse torque

Figure 3: Torque Curve


OutfittingThe icebreaker is provided with adequate equipment for working in the harsh arctic environment. For example the following details are provided:

• The vessel’s towing arrangement is designedwith very high power winches with auto mooring capability.

• The vessel is provided with two bow thrustersassuring the successful operation in heavy conditions and also secures the redundancy of the navigation with joy-stick steering near the oil terminal and in rescue operations.

• Heating of accommodation areas through “dual

channel” heated ventilation system. The central heating of the ventilation air is arranged with steam boiler. Additional redundancy is arranged with electrical heating radiators in each accommodation space that is adjacent to external bulkheads. Insulation of all spaces is designed for low temperature operation. Generally the thickness of rock wool insulation in the accommodation area is 150mm. Special attention is paid to insulation arrangement so that the condensation is avoided in +35 to -45 °C outside temperatures. The cool bridges are built so that decks, bulkheads etc have a minimum 500mm breadth insulation bridge. Double glass thermo windows and additional winter glasses are installed in all cabin and service space windows. The navigation bridge windows have additionally electrical defrost heating and warm air blowers.

Model TestsVTT (Finnish Technical Research Centre) towing tank and Helsinki Technical University ice basin facilities were selected by us for their independence and impartiality to carry out resistance and propulsion and ice model tests.

Model tests in ice were carried out with 2 ice thicknesses, namely 1.0m and 1.7m. For the 1.0m ice sheet, the following tests were carried out: propulsion and resistance tests ahead and astern and breaking out of channel tests. For the 1.7m ice sheet, the following tests were carried out: propulsion and resistance tests ahead. Other tests carried out included ridge penetration test and ice rubble/channel penetration tests.

Model tests in open water as follows: resistance,

Model tests in open water as follows: resistance, propeller, thruster, self propulsion, overload propulsion, bollard pull, flow visualisation and wakefield tests.

The hull form design and propulsion design were refined in accordance with the test results obtained. The final principal parameters of the icebreaker are given in Table 1.

Open water speed and bollard pull as predicted by VTT/Helsinki University was 16.6 knots and 172.5 tonnes. Actual measured open water speed and bollard pull carried out on completion of vessel in Singapore was 16.1 knots and 178.4 tonnes respectively. Predicted ship speed in 1.7m level ice with 20cm snow cover is 3.2 knots (contractual speed is 3 knots).

As the icebreaker had to fly the Russian flag, she had to be designed to comply with the Russian Labour Protection Management System rules and Russian Sanitary and “Epidemiological” rules. These rules are parallel to the more commonly used SOLAS, IMO and ILO regulations however the Russian rules are more stringent than IMO/ILO rules especially in the matter of noise level, vibration level, head room, ergonomics, electromagnetic radiation level, ease of maintenance of equipment, etc.

The icebreaker is provided with adequate equipment for working in the harsh Arctic environment. The following details are provided:

very high power winches with auto mooring capability.

assuring the successful operation in heavy conditions and also secures the redundancy of the navigation with joy-stick steering near the oil terminal and in rescue operations.

channel” heated ventilation system. The central heating of the ventilation air is arranged with steam boiler. Additional redundancy is arranged with electrical heating radiators in each accommodation space that is adjacent to external bulkheads. Insulation of all spaces is designed for low temperature operation. Generally, the thickness of rock wool insulation in the accommodation area is 150mm. Special attention is paid to insulation arrangement so that the condensation is avoided in -45°C to +35 °C outside temperatures. The cool bridges are built so that decks, bulkheads etc have a minimum 500mm breadth insulation bridge. Double glass thermo windows and additional winter glasses are installed in all cabin and service space windows. The navigation bridge windows have additional electrical defrost heating and warm air blowers.

VTT (Finnish Technical Research Centre) towing tank and Helsinki Technical University ice basin facilities were selected to carry out resistance and propulsion and ice model tests due to their independence and impartiality.

Model tests in ice were carried out with two ice thicknesses, namely 1.0m and 1.7m. For the 1.0m ice sheet, the following tests were carried out: propulsion and resistance tests ahead and astern and breaking out of channel tests. For the 1.7m ice sheet, the following tests were carried out: propulsion and resistance tests ahead. Other tests carried out included ridge penetration test and ice rubble/channel penetration tests.

propeller, thruster, self propulsion, overload propulsion, bollard pull, flow visualization and wakefield tests.

Principal DimensionsThe hull form design and propulsion design were refined in accordance with the test results obtained. The final main dimensions of the icebreaker were determined as follows:

Table 1: Principal Parameters

Predictions vs. Actual MeasurementsOpen water speed and bollard pull as predicted by VTT/Helsinki University was 16.6 knots and 172.5 tonnes. Actual measured open water speed and bollard pull carried out on completion of vessel in Singapore was 16.1 knots and 178.4 tonnes respectively. Predicted ship speed in 1.7m level ice with 20cm snow cover is 3.2 knots (contractual speed is 3 knots).

Russian FlagAs the icebreaker had to fly the Russian flag she had to be designed to comply with the Russian Labour Protection Management System rules and Russian Sanitary and “Epidemiological” rules. These rules are parallel to the more commonly used SOLAS, IMO and ILO regulations however the Russian rules are more stringent than IMO/ILO rules especially in the matter of noise level, vibration level, head room, ergonomics, electromagnetic radiation level, ease of maintenance of equipment, etc.

Other Special Features• The icebreaker has to comply with RS two-

compartment damage stability criteria.


• Navigationbridgelayoutwasdesignedwiththehelpof experienced Finnish icebreaker captain and Lukoil’s own master mariners.

• Powerfulsearchlightsandnightvisionequipmentareprovided.

• DetailedFiniteElementanalysisinwayofazimuthingthrusters. In the event of grounding in way of the stern thrusters, the stern thrusters are designed to break in such a way that water ingress into the hull will be kept to an absolute minimum.

• Ship side and bottom painted with “Inerta 160”coating solvent free epoxy (500μ) specially designed for ice operations.

• Thescavengingair inletblowershave thermostatcontrolled steam heaters.

• Thebowthrusterroomventilationinletairisarrangedwith steam heaters and the ventilation starts automatically only when the pump is started.

• Thevesselisprovidedwithtwomainseawaterinlets,one of which will be an ice sea chest. One additional sea chest is arranged for fire extinguishing and fire fighting pumps. All sea chests are provided with pressure air and steam connections for ice freeing purposes.

• Oneoftheballasttanksisarrangedtobeusedasamachinery cooling water tank.

• Becauseoftheextremelowambienttemperaturethe

ship’s ballast, Heavy Fuel Oil, Sludge oil, Bilge water, lube oil storage, used lube oil storage and waste water tanks are all arranged with steam heating coils.

CHALLENGES

From a strength viewpoint the most challenging issues are:

• ThepredominantuseofhightensilestrengthE500steel in the ships’ hulls.

• The heavy stem bars and azimuth thruster riderplates.

• Largesizebulbplates.

• Sourcing forE500gradesteelplates,selectionofappropriate welding consumables, getting class approval for welding procedures.

• The fabrication of the propulsion thrusterfoundations.

• In-situ machining of the thruster foundation topplates.

• Coldbendingoftheheavybulbplates.

• Liftingofthe“grandassembly”ofthesternblocks(incorporating the azimuthing thruster foundations) and erecting the “grand assembly”. The massive structure necessitated the use of a heavy lift floating crane.

• Thehigh loads (due toveryheavyhullscantlings)placed on the slipways. Prior to erecting the blocks on the slipway, the slipway had to be locally strengthened by piles.

• Thelaunchingofthevesselsarepointsofconcern.The “hollow” ends of the ship meant that we had to fit external buoyancy tanks to help the ships float off without damage.

• Theshallowwaterdeptharoundouryardalsoposeda big challenge to us. We had to retain the external buoyancy tanks until the last moment when the ships entered our VLCC docks for final bottom painting job and getting the ships ready for official sea trials. Without the external buoyancy tanks the ships were floating at drafts in excess of 8m. Even with VLCC docks we had to carefully choose the right moment (highest tide) to undock the ships.


The steel weight for H327 is 2175 tonnes and for H328 is 3440 tonnes. The deadweight for H327 is 1500 tonnes and for H328 is 3150 tonnes. If lower grade steel, say, EH32 had been used in lieu of E500, the reduction in deadweight would be about 250 tonnes and 400 tonnes for H327 and H328 respectively.

Prior to commencement of ship construction, successful extensive ice model testing was carried out to confirm hull–ice interaction, ship speed in level ice, breaking out of channel, turning circle, ridge penetration, bollard pull test and propeller tests etc. For any yard embarking on building icebreakers for the very first time, the preliminary testing stage and good planning cannot be over emphasized.

:

The icebreaking AHTS and the icebreaker were delivered to the owners in August and December 2008 respectively. Both ships are already in operation in the Varandey terminal in ice covered seas. Full scale ice trials are scheduled for April/May 2009. Keppel Singmarine personnel are making plans to participate in the full scale ice trials.

KOMtech will leverage on the author’s experience as well as the development of the two icebreakers to embark on future research projects related to the Arctic.

Table 2: Estimated Net Quantity of E500 Steel for H328

Table 3: Estimated Net Quantity of E500 Steel for H327

:


KOMtech will leverage on the author’s experience as well as the development of the two icebreakers to embark on future research projects related to the Arctic.

CONCLUSION


This paper is featured in this Journal courtesy of Keppel Offshore & Marine Technology Centre (KOMtech). This paper also appears in Technology Review 2009.


Keeping Records & Calibration: There Are Savings to be Made When Implemented Wisely

KEEPING RECORDS

you may be keeping more records than required by ISO9001! Removing the “more” not only save you money but also eliminate bother while increasing the productivity of your people.

Take a stroll to any office or workplace and see the evidence all around you. The records are occupying space that you pay rent for, occupying your people’s time doing work that customers do not pay you to do and contributing to clutter and posing a fire hazard! My first experience with keeping records for no useful purpose was at the Singapore Polytechnic. I discovered a 100 square metres basement room filled with rows upon rows of 4-drawer cabinets. In them were the attendance registers of students of the previous 20 years. The staff member who kept the records was most adamant that the registers must be kept, “because we have always kept them”. I challenged him to find me the policy, directive or regulation that required him to do so – he could not. I asked him, “Has anyone ever asked him to produce one of the registers?” He told me, “Many years ago, a student was charged in court for a crime. He pleaded innocence claiming that he was in class at the time. Luckily for him, I had the attendance register to back his claim and he was found not guilty!” Despite this, I got him to destroy the registers and surrender the much needed space. I explained to him that it is not the Singapore Polytechnic’s responsibility to keep records for the courts or anybody else! During the course of my audits, I have come across many cases of money (in terms of time and storage space) wasted in keeping records. Here are just 3 cases that I like to share:

a) 20 years of records of items issued by a store. These could have been destroyed after annual inventory checks are conducted, discrepancies resolved and closed.

b) 3 clerks assigned to file records of tools borrowed by workers of subcontractors. Even if the loans are justified, the tools could have been issued in bulk to the subcontractors who in turn could be held accountable for their loss or damage.

c) Sets of drawings, specifications, reference sheets,

purchase orders, minutes, notes, chits, test results and other paperwork and email correspondences with owners, class and suppliers related to repairs done for ships that had sailed many years ago. Each set could have been destroyed when the repair report was accepted by the ship owner and the repair bill paid. The items were kept by a ship repair manager and many were obsolete!

Do you get paid by customers for keeping voluminous records? If “yes”, do keep more records (like archiving storage companies). It’s “no” for most companies. Keeping records adds to your business cost. Keeping records penalises you with non-conformances (e.g. missing/hard to retrieve/illegible/damaged records) and demoralises those having to keep them!

ISO9001:2008 requirement 4.2.4 does NOT require you to keep ALL records – only those needed “to provide evidence of conformity to requirements” of applicable regulations, your customers, your products and your processes.

Cheng Huang Leng B. Sc, MScFellow, SNAMES


Go to:http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/management_standards/iso_9000_iso_14000/iso_9001_2008.htm and you will find that there are only 15 clauses & sub-clauses that require you to maintain records, if you DO NOT do design, and 20 if you do! As for the requirements of regulations, customers, your products, etc, you should know what they are.

ISO9001 requires you to have a procedure to define the “controls” for your records. And “controls” means “identification, storage, protection, retrieval, retention time and disposition of records”. The simplest way to comply is to maintain a “master list of records” and with these “controls” defined for each record in the list:

Identification – name of record (e.g. management review minutes) is enough. No need to give each record a unique number (unless you are in the business of keeping records).

Storage – say where (e.g. folder name if hardcopy and directory if softcopy) and if offsite, say, where

Protection – specify (where necessary) how you will protect hardcopy records from damage (e.g. by fire, water and from being eaten by rats), unauthorised access and theft. And for softcopy records how you protect them against computer virus and loss of data. Handwritten records are allowed provided the handwriting is legible and the ink will not fade in time! Retrieval – Storage and filing of records should be such that they could be retrieved easily by others who need them and not only the keeper! It helps if the records are not locked away, the folder stems are labelled, the filing method is specified (e.g. file by date, customer name, PO number etc.) and an index is provided. (Those going for the Deming Prize must be able to retrieve any record asked for in 3 seconds! This prize is probably the 2nd toughest quality award in the World; the toughest is the Japan Prize).

Retention time – this depends on what the regulations applicable to your products and processes and the contractual requirements of your customers. If both says, nothing – see paragraph on “how to save money”.

Disposition – say how you would get rid of obsolete

(when retention time expires) records e.g. recycle, sell, throw, burn or shred. Make sure that sensitive records are disposed without violating customer (e.g. confidentiality) requirements.

Who to do the above tasks? you MUST assign responsibilities if you are serious about keeping records and want to avoid trouble with them.

How to save money?1. Keep as few records as you can get away with. you

do so by going through your existing master list of records and start deleting records that are NOT required by ISO9001, regulations and customers.

2. Next, you delete records that you did not ask for yourself or serve no useful purpose! Many would keep records, “Just in case I (or others) need to refer to them”. Do ask them, “When was the last time that happened?” They are likely to be stumped for an answer. What would happen if your external auditor asks for a record that you have already destroyed because it’s obsolete? Tell him “too bad” and offer him other forms of evidence (e.g. results, the real thing, show/demo and alibi) if necessary and/or available.

3. For records that you must keep, set the retention time to what the regulations and/or customers require of you. If both are silent, try to set the retention time to the shortest possible time e.g. 24 hours and if you are honest with yourself, most hardcopy records could be destroyed immediately after the data is captured in your IT system thus eliminate the need to file! Some records should be kept long enough so that the data they contain can be analysed with a view to effect improvement or to be able to take corrective action retrospectively. Audit records are typically kept for 3 years so that the MR can analyse them to identify adverse trends for timely preventive action. Test records (e.g. for cars) are kept fairly long (and in computers) so that those with defects (discovered later) could be recalled for corrective action. you can define the retention time for a specific set of records e.g. for ship repair, it’s OK to set the retention time of the repair reports to “7 days after the repair bill is settled”.

4. Keep ONLy ONE SET of records and the person assigned and defined in the master list of records


should do it. All other sets (or copies) are for others to use and may be destroyed immediately after use. A typical design office would issue for construction 20 sets of drawings to the various trades in a shipyard. There is no reason for any user to keep any of them after the drawings are used.

5. That softcopy (kept in your computer system) could

be that ONE SET of records to keep. Make sure that it’s backed up. How often (daily, weekly, monthly?) depends on the volume of your transactions. The volume equals the effort and cost of re-keying the data if you computer crash! Caution: Store the back up media (tape/portable hard disk/thumb drive) away from the server room to minimise risk due to fire. One lady boss I know goes home each day with her disk drive in her handbag! you can then destroy all hardcopies thus freeing valuable space, eliminating unproductive work and removing a fire hazard.

CALIBRATION

you will realise savings if you calibrate only what is needed WITHOUT violating ISO9001!

Most companies incur a lot more money on calibration than required because they calibrate measuring equipment that are:

a) NOT required by the laws of nature, orb) NOT required by ISO9001 andc) When required, they “over kill”!

Here are 5 typical situations I come across during my audits:

NOT required by the laws of nature: calibrating equipment whose property (and hence accuracy) will not change e.g. standard gage sets and dead weights. Both have NO moving parts, will not wear with time and unless they are chipped or deformed deliberately, they will give the same readings for the next 1,000 years! 1. NOT required by ISO9001: calibrating all monitoring

and measuring equipment when you need only calibrate those “needed to provide evidence of conformity of product to determined requirements”. E.g. In ship repair, you need to prove that the renewed plates and pipes are of the required grade and thickness, that there are no weld defects and

that there is no leak. Dimensions are important but accuracy is NOT important. Hence, there is no need to calibrate your measuring tapes and protractors. In machinery repair, you need to prove that the functions of a repaired pump are restored, there is no leak, and there is no excessive vibration, unusual noise and heat. you do NOT need to calibrate the discharge pressure gage, venier used to measure the dimensions of the new shaft, balancing machine used to balance the rotor blades and the multi-meter used to confirm that the insulation of the renewed motor windings UNLESS restoration to a discharge pressure, vibration and quality of insulation were specified as customer requirements.

Examples of “over-kill”:

you may be calibrating equipment that need only be checked. E.g. steel measuring tapes/rulers and glass thermometers. Will a measuring tape become longer with time and/or frequent use? Not that I know of! It will become shorter if there is a kink (if it got twisted and bent) in the tape. you should of course check its condition before use and replace it if damaged or if the markings defaced! A glass thermometer will give consistent readings from the day it was made unless the glass ware is damaged! If you suspect that it is giving you inaccurate readings, you can do a quick verification – stick it in ice, your mouth and in boiling water. It should read 0, 37 and 100 degrees centigrade respectively. If not, it’s time to throw the thermometer into your trash bin!

you may be calibrating equipment used as indicators, e.g. a multi-meter that is used to find out whether a circuit is open or closed. you only need to check whether that the multi-meter is functioning correctly i.e. will show zero ohms when the terminals are shorted. Note that you need to check only “prior to use” and not periodically.

2. you may be calibrating more often than needed. Most do it “annually”. Why not weekly, monthly or every 3 years? Remember that we should calibrate measuring equipment when its accuracy is suspect. Thus the frequency of calibration should be linked to how likely the equipment will lose its accuracy. It will if it has moving parts that wear, stick, rust, deform or deteriorate AND if it is mishandled. I have seen micrometers being used by workers with


greasy fingers and who threw (instead of placed) them after use and onto hard dirty surfaces. Thus if your micrometer is used every day and in a hostile environment, you may have to calibrate it weekly. On the other hand, if the micrometer is used once a month and is treated with tender loving care and stored in a clean and dry (need not be cool) place, then you may need to calibrate it once every 3 years or longer! One objective way to justify your decision to extend the calibration period is this. Compare the latest calibrated results with the previous calibration results. If the readings are almost similar and within the accuracy of your application (see next example), then you know that the accuracy of your equipment has not changed significantly (we call this “drift”). you can double your calibration period. you should challenge your auditor if he does not accept your justification!

3. you may have specified the accuracy requirement as “to manufacturer’s standard”. It’s like servicing your car every 5,000 km as recommended by the car maker. you certainly need NOT if your car is driven in clean Singapore (I do mine only after 20,000 km or when the engine oil is dirty). you certainly should service it more often if you drive your car in sandy Saudi Arabia. Calibrating to a higher accuracy attracts higher costs because more accurate and expensive equipment would be needed to calibrate your equipment. The accuracy to which your equipment is to be calibrated should be related to your application. E.g. your pressure gage is used to set the lifting pressure of relief valves. If the typical relief pressure is 100 bars +/- 5 bars, then +/- 5 bars will be the accuracy required. If you follow the maker’s standard, it will probably be +/-0.5 bar (i.e. 10 times more accurate than needed).

4. you may be sending your equipment for external calibration when you could calibrate it yourself in-house. For the above pressure gage example, get a pressure gage that has a range of up to 200 bars and one that you can read down to 0.5 bars i.e. one that has a large face! This gage shall be called the “master” and should be externally calibrated. (Caution: Make sure that the calibration certificate issued indicates that the calibration equipment used could be traced “to international or national measurement standards“. Frequency of calibration to be dependent on how often you use it to calibrate your other pressure gages.) you

can then calibrate your pressure gage by comparing readings with the “master” gage for the same applied pressure. you should apply pressure increasingly in steps of 20 bars and then decreasingly. you must record the results which will serve as your calibration record.

5. you may have inadvertently thrown away equipment whose required accuracy limits were violated BUT for measurements OUTSIDE your measuring range. E.g. If your pressure gage has a range from 0 – 1,000 bars AND you require to use it to measure pressures typically between 200 – 300 bars, then that gage need to be accurate between 200 – 300 bars. If the gage is NOT accurate for measurements between 0 - 200 bars and 300 – 1,000 bars, it does not matter! you should of course stick a note on the gage to alert users that “gage is accurate from 200 – 300 bars only”.

If you still got doubts about keeping records or calibration; pose your questions to [email protected]. I will respond, though not always immediately. My answers will be FREE.

Cheng Huang Leng was a Colombo Plan scholar and a B.Sc. and M.Sc. graduate of Newcastle University, UK in 1970 and 1971 respectively. He taught marine engineering at the Singapore Polytechnic before joining Singapore Technologies to help develop its people and it subsidiaries to establish Quality Management Systems.


Diesel pest is not a new disease, nor is it a new problem, but harsh reality with potentially dangerous consequences. The term diesel pest is used to describe a phenomenon which is often only recognised once it is too late, when blocked filters have interrupted the flow of fuel and the engine has come to a standstill. Laymen may explain away the slimy, indefinable congestion with poor-quality fuel or a variety of other possible causes, and then get down to the time-consuming and tedious chore of changing the filter elements yet again.

A clean filter will enable the engine to start running again, but it has not eliminated the root cause; it is only a matter of time until the damage manifests into a more serious and more expensive problem.

Let us take a closer look at this issue: 1. What is DIESEL PEST? 2. The consequences and possible damage 3. Solutions – ineffective and effective

1. DIESEL PEST

Every time a ship refuels, the ship’s operators run a certain risk of contracting diesel pest, which is a microbial contamination of oil and fuel. This contamination can occur because any type of fuel (diesel, gas, fuel oil, and also petrol, kerosene, naphtha and other middle distillates) can contain the micro-organisms depicted in Figure 1 (bacteria, yeasts and fungi).

Although it has been known for more than 25 years that micro organisms can contaminate fuel and oil, very few

“Diesel Pest”: A New Disease?

Ing. Eberhard RungeSenior Consultant, Project EngineerMAHLE Industriefiltration GmbH

petroleum industry service laboratories are in a position to provide informa tion about this potential hazard.

As early as 1971, the Navy Research Laboratory in Washington identified micro-organisms as a key source of contamination and subsequent service disruption. Quality testing on diesel fuel samples was standardised by the IP Code of Practice for testing the microbial content in light distilled fuels (IP 386/88). A working group set up by the Institute of Petroleum published a standard guide entitled “Guidelines for the investigation of microbial content of distillate fuels“ (5.1.94).

The SGS limits can be viewed as threshold values for microbial contamination. The total number of micro-organisms is limited to < 3x103/l, which is a value lower than that applied to drinking water. But in practice, even contamination this low can lead to serious problems, a fact that has been substantiated by experts.

While it has been known for a long time that micro-organisms can contaminate diesel fuels, the actual facts are not widely available, leaving one with the

Figure 1: Micro-organisms


suspicion that the awareness of the microbial problem has been kept quiet in order to avoid any claims for damages and compensation. Nobody wants to have to assume responsibility for ensuring microbe-free quality. To this day, microbial purity is not a quality criterion in petroleum delivery standards! Because the problem can be so serious, it is essential that the issue of microbial contamination is no longer concealed: it needs to become common knowledge.

Microbiological tests must be established as routine procedures when filters are blocked or there are unexplained sludge deposits and signs of unusual wear.

This also applies to petroleum storage facilities along the entire retail chain: from oil refinery storage tanks to tankers.

2. THE CONSEQUENCES AND POSSIBLE DAMAGE

While blocked filters are an annoyance, and expensive and time-consuming to clear, they are the mildest form of damage.

Microbial corrosion can cause much more severe damage, potentially even putting the ship and its crew at risk. The corrosion is not caused by the direct interaction between bacteria and metal; the real culprits are the by-products of bacterial metabolism.

The corrosive attack caused by fungi follows the same general pattern: the fungi excrete organic and inorganic acids along with other metabolism by-products, and these trigger the corrosion process.

Figure 2 shows the damage to the surface of a ship’s tank caused by microbial contamination. In this particular case, by the time the contamination was detected, the tanks were severely corroded to the point of perforation.

A comprehensive study lists the most commonly occurring damage, in order of frequency:

1. Filter and separation problems 2. Engine corrosion 3. Damage to bearings 4. Damaged injection pumps and nozzles 5. Burst engine parts 6. Corroded turbine blades 7. General symptoms of corrosion

3. SOLUTIONS – INEFFECTIVE AND EFFECTIVE

To determine which solutions are effective, and which are ineffective, we need to take a closer look at the micro-organisms and the environments in which they thrive. To reproduce and multiply, micro-organisms need two key parameters: water and a substrate. Because they are organic substances, fuels and mineral oils act as substrates for micro-organisms. Once you have this substrate, the only factor limiting microbial growth is water or the water concentration in fuel or mineral oil.

Older research put the limit for microbial growth at < 100ppm free, i.e. unbound water; however, more recent tests have shown that microbial growth only stops at a content of < 60ppm water in diesel and other types of fuel. At this level, the remaining water is dissolved (solubility 70ppm) and the aw value is lower than that necessary for microbial growth (unbound water).

The most effective solution is very simple: less than 60ppm unbound water! Both the delivery specifications of the petroleum industry and the technical specifications of the German Federal Armed Forces permit 100ppm free water.

This is a list of the equipment and systems currently available which do not provide the necessary results, although several of these systems are regrettably well established on the market and particularly in shipbuilding:

1. Mechanical separators are not able to provide sufficient separation of unbound water, although

Figure 2: Surface corrosion of a ship’s tank


the filtration perform ance is good enough to remove solids.

2. Filter systems in general, and installed as stand-alone systems, are not effective enough to separate the water.

3. Most commercially available systems which claim to filter and separate, and which are advertised as providing 100% water separation, lure shipbuilders into purchasing a cheap solution which does not function as promised. The advertising claim that these systems deliver 100% water separation is based on a DIN standard measured according to the Karl Fischer titration method, which in the past gave 1000ppm water and now 500ppm residual water content – perfect conditions for micro-organisms!

4. Permanent magnets are sold to combat “Diesel Pest”, but unfortunately these fail to live up to the claims the manufac turers make. If these magnets are installed in front of a filter, the operator may gain the impression that it is effective. However, this impression is misleading because all that hap pens is that the micro-organisms are torn apart as they pass the magnet due to their polar structure, which allows them to pass through a standard filter. What it does not do is combat the real problem, which is the underlying contamination.

So let’s take a look at the effective solutions. Because distillation produces a fuel that is practically sterile, the simplest solution is to keep it that way by avoiding exposing the product to water (including condensate) and air. But because this is quite simply not feasible, NFV technology offers proven solutions to tackle this problem effectively.

Water forms in the storage tanks and when spot deliveries are added, as well along the entire supply chain, thus creating the environment micro-organisms need to grow. This chain continues into the bunker tanks and right through to the service and feed tanks.

1. To avoid recontamination, it is necessary to start with the fundamental design when building and reconditioning tank systems. Easy, fast and regular dewatering must be a key feature in these plans. MAHLE Industrial Filtration in Hamburg supplies fully automatic tank dewatering systems which not only remove the pure water phase at the bottom of the tank, but also separate the water in the intermediate phase (prod-uct/water). Tank systems, including storage tanks, bunker and feed tanks, must be designed to provide optimum separation conditions. Drainage pipes, which also act as sampling points for NFV maintenance systems as well as dewatering outlets of fuel pipelines, must be installed at the very lowest point (Fig. 3).

Figure 3: Tank dewatering system


Every effort must be made to maintain microbial quality stan dards when designing tank systems and transport systems for fuel; dewatering systems such as NFV fuel treatment systems which ensure with guaranteed residual water contents of be tween <20 – 50ppm play an important part in achieving and maintaining these quality standards.

2. Biocides can be used to prevent microbial growth in fuel storage tanks; these substances can also be used to clean up contaminated fuels.

A suitable biocide should contain an active agent which imme diately kills off all micro-organisms. As experts, MAHLE Indus trial Filtration in Hamburg can recommend a suitable biocide. The biocide is effective against a wide spectrum of bacteria (including sulphate-reducing bacteria) and is also effective against yeasts and fungi.

The alkalinity of the biocide neutralises the acids produced by microbial growth, thus providing effective and lasting protec tion against corrosion.

No corrosive combustion products are formed; the substance is sulphur-free, contains no organic chlorine compounds so that there is no hazard of the waste water being contaminated by AOX. It contains no halogens and complies with interna tional emission standards.

MAHLE Industrial Filtration supplies metering systems for the preventive application of biocide; these meters can be used to add precise doses of biocide each time the tank is filled.

A German shipyard building a gas oil treatment system followed the recommendations of the turbine manufacturer and installed mechanical separators, which were, however, not capable of bringing the residual water content down to the necessary levels. Subsequently, a NFV metering system was installed to add a preventive dose of biocide every time the tank is filled.

SUMMARy

Fuels and other petroleum products will always be prone to microbial contamination.

Regular tests can help to detect the problem at an early

stage, allowing appropriate countermeasures to be taken to kill off the microbes and avoid contamination. Water separators (phase separators) which are capable of removing practically all the water in the fuel (NFV systems) offer dependable protection against micro-organisms and the consequences of microbial contamina-tion (see Fig. 4).

A biocide can also be used as a secondary method of protecting the fuel against contamination.

COMPANy

MAHLE Industriefiltration GmbH is part of the MAHLE Group, one of the world’s 30 largest automotive suppliers, and is a global supplier of innovative, top quality industrial filters. MAHLE Industrial Filtration has two brands: NFV and AKO.

For almost 50 years, NFV products have been used by shipping companies as reliable systems for deoiling, membrane filtration and fuel and oil treatment. Our products help our partners to successfully balance economy and ecology. By focusing our maritime and petrochemical activities in the new Hamburg facility, we are able to streamline research, planning and production in one site.

MAHLE Industrial Filtration’s NFV and AKO products offer a broad range of customised and highly efficient filtration and separation systems for a wide variety of applications: from bilge water separation to ballast water treatment and engine maintenance, the protection of hydraulic systems and pipelines, transfer and circulation systems.

Figure 4: Blocked fuel line


This comprehensive portfolio is rounded off by customer support services precisely tailored to customers’ needs. Ten of the world’s top 15 shipping companies, the world’s three largest shipyards and naval services around the world (including the German, Turkish, Russian and U.S. Navy) equip their ships with our environmentally friendly, high quality systems, placing their trust in the outstanding operating security of NFV systems. NFV products have been the German Navy’s partner of choice for deoiling, membrane filtration and fuel treatment systems for over 30 years.

The MAHLE Group is one of the 30 largest automotive suppliers worldwide. As the leading manufacturer of combustion engine components, systems and peripherals, MAHLE is among the top three suppliers for piston systems, cylinder components, valve train systems, air management systems and liquid management systems. MAHLE employs approximately 48,000 employees in 110 production plants and eight research and development centers. In 2007, MAHLE generated sales in excess of EUR 5 billion (USD 7.5 billion).

For further questions please contact: MAHLE Industriefiltration GmbH Christian Küchlin Tarpenring 31 - 33 22419 Hamburg

Phone: +49 (0) 40/53 00 40-66 Fax: +49 (0) 40/53 00 40-77 [email protected] www.mahle-industrialfiltration.com

Press releases and picture services for downloading: www.mahle-industrialfiltration\news and press

Eberhard Runge was managing director of MAHLE Industriefiltration GmbH, formerly MAHLE NFV GmbH, until he retired on 30th June 2008. Since then, he has worked as a consultant for MAHLE Industrial Filtration in Hamburg. He is a member of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce plenum and chairman of the Chamber’s “Environment” committee and member of the “Environment” committee of the DIHK (German Chamber of Industry and Commerce) in Berlin.

Founded in 1984, Oakwell Engineering Limited has grown into a public-listed company (1994) distributing engineering products for the oil & gas, petrochemical, chemical, marine and utilities industries, as well as providing a wide array of services, including stocking, engineering design and fabrication. We also supply power, control and instrument speciality cables, heat tracing cables, explosion-proof electrical construction materials and equipment, electronic products, mechanic products such as special alloy copper nickel pipes and fittings, valves, compressors, pumps, equipment system packages, etc.

We represent a stocklist of the following lines:• Marine & Offshore Electrical Cable > Nexans - Kukdong > Nexans - Corflex > Nexans - Gorse• Navigation Aid > Orga• Heat Tracing > Thermon• Electrical Apparatus > Crouse - Hinds, CEAG• Cable Gland & Accessories > Capri, CMP

Our Global Offices•Singapore•Malaysia•Indonesia•Thailand•China•USA

OAKWELL ENGINEERING LIMITED No.8AljuniedAve3OakwellBuildingSingapore389933Tel: (65) 6742 8000 Fax: (65) 6742 3000Email: [email protected]: www.oakwell.com.sg


ABSTRACT

Fiber rope used as substitute for steel wire for ultra deep water installation operations has been successfully used since September 2006 in Gulf of Mexico and West Africa. More than 300 installations in water depths up to 2750 m have been completed using a 46Te fibre rope deployment system (FRDS). A Rope Management System is part of the winch control system which assures higher utilization and risk mitigation. Scaling of the technology up to 125 Te and 250 Te lifting capacity is now in process through two commercial contracts, with Aker Oilfield services and Havila Shipping.

INTRODUCTION

The industry trend of more oil and gas exploration in deep and ultra deep water has put focus on finding faster and cheaper methods for installation and construction work at these water depths. One significant driver in this picture is the weight of the lifting line. The weight penalty of steel wire is increasing rapidly with depth, and is becoming a significant cost driver for depths beyond 2000 meters.

A solution for this is to avoid the weight penalty by using lifting line that is close to neutrally buoyant in water. Using fiber rope as substitute for steel wire for deep water installation is an attractive solution. However, several challenges with regards to handling of fiber rope must be solved and a corresponding handling system must be available in order to take advantage of this opportunity. This has been the purpose of the development and field demonstration of the patented ODIM CTCU™ technology through several Joint Industry Projects since 2002. The background for the development and the status and results so far as well as future plans are presented in this paper.

Comparison between steel wire and fiber ropeTraditionally, steel wire is used as lifting lines in offshore lifting operations. These lifting lines have limitations, particularly in deep water, primarily due to their self weight. Utilizing high strength, low weight synthetic fiber ropes instead of steel wire as the lifting line substantially reduces the weight of the lifting line and consequently the needed pulling force of the handling system. This in turn will reduce the needed power supply from the vessel and opens up for using smaller vessels for heavy lift operations in deep water. Smaller vessels and less powerful handling systems for the same job, inherently makes fiber rope technology an environmentally friendly solution.

Comparison between steel wire and fiber rope with regards to weight of lifting the line, required working load for a winch system and power consumption for installation of a 125 Te payload is shown below. A factor of safety of 4 has been used both for steel wire and fiber rope in the calculations.

Fig. 1: Line-pull at surface.

Sverre TorbenODIM

Per IngebergODIM

Fibre Rope Deployment System:The Solution to Deepwater Installation Challenges


At 3000 m water depth, the required working load for the steel wire winch will be around 300 Te, whilst only 127 Te is required for the fiber rope winch.

Fig. 2: Rope weight in air.

Another interesting aspect is the weight of the lifting line with regards to fabrication, handling and transportation. The weight in air of the required steel wire for this case will be around 200 Te, whilst the corresponding fiber rope weight will only be 20 Te. 200 Te weight for a steel wire represents a challenge with regard to logistics and handling, and is getting close to practical limits and capabilities for the industry today.

Fig. 3: Power supplied to lifting line.

Considering an Active Heave Compensated system (AHC) with speed capacity of 1.5 m/s, the peak power supplied by the winch to the lifting line is shown in Fig. 3. For a system rated for 3000 meters water depth, the steel wire system would need to deliver power peaks of 4.4 MW to the lifting line, whilst the fiber rope system

would only need to supply 1.9 MW peak power to the fiber rope. This represents the minimum installed power of the motors of the handling system. The actual power supplied from the vessel to the handling system depends upon several factors like electric or hydraulic drives, size of accumulators for hydraulic systems, mechanical losses etc.

ChallengesFrom this comparison of steel wire and fiber rope, the motivation and potential savings are quite obvious. However, the utilization of fiber ropes for lifting lines is not completely straight forward. There are major differences in the properties of fiber ropes compared to steel wire that need to be considered when developing a fiber rope handling system: • Subsea installationmeansdeploymentofaheavy

object and recovery of the empty hook. To avoid spooling rope onto the drum at very low tension during recovery of the empty hook, a traction unit is required for installation systems using fiber rope. Otherwise, high tension rope would squeezes into softly spooled on layers during deployment of a heavy object.

• Toavoidexcessivecreepoftheropeonthestoragedrum, the rope is recommended to be stored at a tension below 10% of the Minimum Breaking Load. At a typical safety factor of 4 - 5, the working load will represent 20-25% of the Minimum Breaking Load, which is well above the recommended storage tension. Thus, a traction unit is needed also in the case of recovery operations of heavy payloads.

• Fiber ropes have lower axial stiffness, causingsignificant elongation of the rope as tension is increased through the traction winch, which would cause damaging slippage between the fiber rope and the traction winch drums using a traditional traction winch.

• Fatiguelifewhensubjectedtoconstantcyclicbendinge.g. during heave compensation modes, must be managed. This is also the case for steel wire, but an additional challenge with fiber rope is related to internal heat build up and the sensibility to heat of the fibers.

• Fiberropeswithabraidedconstructionandwithouta jacket can easily be spliced. This opens up for possibilities to utilize the fatigue life of the entire rope by cutting out and replacing worn sections. This requires that the handling system can handle splices in an efficient and safe manner.

• Fiberropeshaveaverylowandvariablecoefficient


of friction due to rope coating, contaminations, temperature etc. This is a challenge when designing a traction winch system which is depending on friction.

• Loweraxialstiffnessmeansthatresonantconditionscan be seen at more shallow depths than for comparable steel wire systems.

Careful consideration needs to be given to these differences, or the fiber ropes will suffer from severe wear and premature failure.

TECHNOLOGy

The Fiber RopeImportant features defined for a fiber rope used as lifting line in heave compensated systems are:• HighCyclicBendOverSheaveperformance.• Torquefreeconstruction.• Fieldinspectableandrepairable.• Highstrengthtoweightratio.

The fiber rope from Puget Sound Rope used in the current development is commonly referred to as “Braid Optimized for Bending” (BOB) and is based upon a 12x12 braided construction. This assures a torque free rope and at the same time, a rope that can easily be inspected internally and repaired offshore by trained riggers. Repair will typically give an inline splice with a diameter 50% above the nominal rope size. The handling system must be capable of handling these splices in order to take advantage of the repairability of the rope.

A blend of High Modulus PolyEthylene (HMPE) and Liquid Crystal Polymer (LCP) fibers has been used to provide good temperature resistance and good creep properties. In addition a lubricant coating is used to reduce friction between fibers and thereby internal wear and heat build up in cyclic bend over sheave operation. The challenge from this is that the handling system must be designed for very low coefficients of friction.

Typically minimum D:d ratio requirement for heave compensating sheaves is 30:1 for this rope (D being the pitch diameter of the rope around a sheave and d the rope diameter).

Handling systemThe ODIM CTCU™ system is a technology developed by the company ODIM in Norway during the last 10

years for handling of sensitive cables like Seismic cables, fiber optic cables and since 2002 also for fiber ropes. A dedicated ODIM CTCU™ system for deep water installation using fiber rope as lifting line is briefly described below. This system having a safe working load of 46 Te with a dynamic factor of 1.3 was developed through a JIP sponsored by DEMO 2000, oil companies, marine contractors and rope / fiber manufacturer.

Fig. 4: 46 Te FRDS System.

The main parts of the ODIM CTCU™ system are:• ODIMCTCU™:Aseriesofsheaveswithindividual

drives that are used to de-tension the rope. • StW:StorageWinchtostoretheropeatlowtension.It

will also assure a constant back tension for the ODIM CTCU™ traction unit to assure frictional capacity.

• IDD:InboardDampingDevicethatwillsmoothenthetension between the ODIM CTCU™ and the StW.

• ODD:OutboardDampingDeviceusedforconstanttension and pull limit control (optional).

• OBD:OverBoardingDevice.• HPU:HydraulicPowerUnitwithaccumulatorsthat

supplies the system with high and low pressure oil.• ControlSystem:Computersystemusedfordynamic

control of individual machines and interactions between machines. The control system also includes the Human Machine Interface and a Rope Management System as described in the next section.

The fiber rope is stored at constant tension on the storage winch on top of the structure. For this particular unit, the storage winch was designed for 4500m of 56 mm rope. From the storage winch, the rope is fed through the spooling device and inboard damping device before entering the individual sheaves of the ODIM CTCU™. From the ODIM CTCU™, the rope is guided


over the outboard damping device before entering the overboarding device.

Important feature of the ODIM CTCU™ traction unit are:• Activeloaddistribution:Sharestheloadbetweenthe

sheaves within the physical limitations of each sheave, i.e. within the frictional capacity of the sheaves and the pulling capacity of the drive system for each traction sheave.

• Slipcontrol:Controlsthespeedof thesheavestocompensate for rope load elongation and variations of diameter due to splices.

• Antispincontrol:Detectsandreactuponemergingspinning situation. Spin is detected by comparing sheave speed with measured rope speed (measured by a redundant measuring system). The system will react by reducing torque on a sheave getting in to a spinning situation.

• D:dratioaccordingtorequirementforcyclicbendoversheave of fiber rope (active heave compensation). The general minimum requirement from the rope manufacturer is 30:1 today. This particular system was designed with a D:d ratio of 35:1 giving the flexibility to using larger sized ropes (higher safety factor) and still maintain the min D:d ratio requirement.

• Differentiatedsheavecoatingsoptimizedwithregardsto load and required frictional capacity for each sheave.

• Sheavegrooveprofileallowingforsplicehandling.• Ropepre-conditioning:Bringstheropesizedownto

nominal size during first time spooling of new rope.

From a system point of view, all needed functionality for deep water installation and construction operations are present:• Highspeeddeploymentofheavyloads.• High speed deployment and recovery of empty

hook.• Powerfulandaccurateactiveheavecompensation:

speed capacity of 2 m/s and 95% accuracy according to signal representing vessel motions.

• Accurateconstanttensionfunction(CT).• Pulllimit:Activelimitationofallowedpullingforce.Pull

Limit can be combined with AHC. This can also be extended to a splash zone transition function (avoid excessive peak loads or slack slings during splash zone transition).

• Automaticlandingfunction:AutomatictransitionfromAHC to CT upon landing. This function may also be

combined with Pull Limit.• Automaticlift-offfunction:Automatictransitionfrom

CT to AHC during liftoff. This function may also be combined with Pull Limit.

• Cranemode:Brakehandlingaccordingtorequirementsfor offshore cranes, thus the FRDS can be integrated with crane, A-frame or other overboarding devices and handle the payload in air / on deck.

Rope Management SystemAny kind of steel wire or fiber rope will suffer from fatigue when being bent around a sheave. In fact, knowledge of bend fatigue life of large low rotation steel wires is not well documented to date.

Cyclic bending over sheave will occur in AHC and CT operations. Real time knowledge of the condition of the rope at any point of the rope is crucial information in order to avoid failure of the rope or to be able to utilize the rope asset in an efficient manner.

Fiber ropes being repairable provides the operators with a unique opportunity to utilize the rope-fatigue-life for all parts of the rope. However this further emphasizes the need for a reliable system for monitoring and managing the condition of the rope as the rope configuration changes upon cutting and splicing of the rope.

To date, there are limited field data available to support rope wear calculations and the establishment of retirement criteria for the rope. Hence, conservative calculations must be applied at the current stage. To speed up and assure quality of the development of wear calculation methods and establishment of less conservative retirement criteria, a system providing data for this development process is highly important.

For the ODIM CTCU™ based Fiber Rope Deployment System, a Rope Management System (RMS) has been developed as an integral part of the winch control system. Real time signals on position and applied tension of any part of the rope is available. This information is then compared with geometrical data of the FRDS, such as sheave diameter and distance between sheaves. On this basis the RMS is capable of counting the number of bends at every position of the rope and weighs each bend according to a factor given by e.g. bend radius and rope tension at each bend point.

In the RMS, the rope is split into rope segments with


configurable length of e.g. 0.33 meters for which rope data is recorded. Data are processed and displayed in real time on the winch operator computer as shown in Fig. 5. Alarms for inspection and replacement of a rope segment that has reached a configurable alarm limit are also implemented as part of the FRDS alarm system. Data is also stored such that it is possible to post process data e.g. using a new factor for bend weighing.

Fig. 5: Rope Management System main screen.

To account for changes in rope configuration when a section of rope is cut out or a new section of rope is spliced in, the RMS has functionality for managing data in such operations. When a section of rope has reached its retirement criteria or if the operator would like to check the actual condition of the rope, this section of rope is cut out and sent to laboratory for testing of residual strength. Data for the corresponding section of rope will automatically be retrieved from the RMS database in this process. Based upon results from residual break tests, the retirement criteria and weighing formulas can be improved. Hence, the RMS is a powerful tool to speed up and assure quality in rope wear and retirement calculations.

For steel wire, repair by cutting out and splicing in sections are not possible. The wire may be cut of at the end, and thereby reducing the total length, or the complete rope must be replaced.

FIELD EXPERIENCE

The 46Te system was delivered to Subsea7 in 2006 for doing subsea installation work from “Toisa Perseus” in Gulf of Mexico in water depths up to 2750m.

A rope life management procedure was developed before this installation work was launched. This involved three principal sub-tasks:

• Developmentofaconservativeropeliferetirementcriterion.

• Developmentofwinchsoftwarewhichwouldtrackthe progress of the rope towards repair or retirement (see rope management system as described above)

• Development of operating procedures for ropeinspection and repair.

The planned use of heave compensation meant that some localized areas of the rope would see a great deal of cyclic bending, while other parts of the rope would see only a few cycles as the rope passed through the winch during lowering to or recovering from depth. The philosophy adopted was that progress towards rope repair or retirement would be monitored by a combination of bend counting, and internal and external rope inspection. The location of the internal inspections would be chosen based upon the recorded bend counts.

The rope retirement criterion was expressed as a number of “weighed bends”, where a rope bend under the same conditions of rope tension and sheave diameter as the high tension driven sheave on the test of the 46 Te ODIM CTCU™ system counted as one bend. Bends incurred at lower tension, for example on an intermediate driven sheave, had a lower weighing. Bends incurred on a smaller diameter sheave would have a higher weighing. The number of weighed bends is therefore not the same as the number of actual bends.

Development of the rope retirement criteria was based upon relevant rope test data from the Dish JIP [1], results of destructive testing of the test rope from the development testing of the 46Te ODIM CTCU™ and research results provided by the rope manufacturer, Puget Sound Rope. Although there was a considerable quantity of test data, there was very little at the low rope loads typical of those occurring at the inboard end of the winch. The bend weighing formula developed was a result of rope modeling work undertaken to assess the effect of rope tension, sheave diameter and groove profile on rope life.

The strength of a rope experiencing cyclic bend-over-sheave loading decreases with increasing numbers of bend cycles. The rope retirement criterion was chosen so that the decreasing factor of safety on a fiber rope in service would never be less than what is permitted for new steel wire rope.

The permitted number of weighed bends to rope internal


inspection and retirement (base line criteria) were set conservatively based on the history of a test rope used during an extensive barge test of the 46 Te ODIM CTCU™ system. Additional conservatisms were that the expected beneficial effects of rope cooling implemented for Gulf of Mexico operation were ignored, and that improvements in the bend counting software since the barge test were also ignored. When the first section of rope reaches the retirement criterion, this section will be cut out and tested extensively, following which the retirement criterion will be reviewed. It is expected that this will allow the number of weighed bends to retirement for the remainder of the rope to be revised upwards.

The RMS software in the winch keeps track of the location of the bend points (points where rope enters and exits sheaves or the storage winch) in relation to the rope as a whole. The software calculates the bend weighing at each bend point in the winch using its internal model of the variation of tension through the winch, working from the instantaneous measured rope tension on the outboard side of the winch. The rope length is divided up into notional short segments and the number of weighed bends which have been experienced by each segment of the rope is recorded. The software flags the need for rope inspection at set percentages of the rope retirement criterion.

To be able to fully exploit the unique repairability feature of fiber rope, the system is designed to be a fully self contained unit capable of performing these operations in an offshore environment. Procedures for rope inspection and repair are developed and tested and training program for vessel personnel established.

If a new section of rope is spliced in at the end of the rope or an end section cut off, a new eye splice must be made. Proof load of the new eye splices is done by connecting the spliced eye with thimble to a dedicated fixed point in the system and then pulled and held using the FRDS to a proof load limit according to DNV rules and regulations for load testing.

In order to make an inspection or repair in the middle of the rope, the rope section in question is positioned between the last sheave of the ODIM CTCU™ unit and the over boarding sheave. The fiber rope can then be unloaded by hanging off the load using a specially developed Chinese Finger. The load holding capacity of the Chinese Finger is tested to a proof load of 10% above

the proof load level of the splice Te. Test is witnessed by DNV.

Fig. 6: Load hang-off using Chinese Finger.

An in-line splicing method that can easily be performed offshore has been developed. The cutting, insertion and splicing of the fiber rope is done by pulling out a loop of rope between the last ODIM CTCU™ sheave and the over boarding device. To proof load in-line splices, a Chinese Finger is installed downstream of the in-line splice and hooked up to a dedicated fixed point in the system. The splice is proof loaded by pulling and holding using the FRDS according to general requirements for load tests in DNV lifting appliances.

Fig. 7: In-line splice made in two colors for illustration.

Fix. 8: In-line splice before proof loading.


To prepare the system for Gulf of Mexico climate, a temperature review of the system was conducted. This resulted in installation of a deluge system for the rope to be used during prolonged active heave compensation at fixed depth. Other modifications were installation of AC units and sun screens for electrical cabinets.

To assess the safety aspects of the system and make sure to comply with Subsea 7 safety requirements, a PUWER (Provision and Use of Work Equipment) analysis was performed and the system upgraded accordingly. To reduce the risk of down time, the FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) from the design phase was reviewed and a suitable spare package procured.

3300 meters of new rope was also procured for this project. It was delivered in a container from the rope manufacturer. The diameter of new rope is almost twice of the nominal diameter, thus it was necessary to pre-tension the rope before spooling it onto the system. This was done by using the unique pre-conditioning function of the ODIM CTCU™ which brings the rope down to nominal size during the spooling process. The rope tension was increased to 25 Te using the first 3 driven sheaves and brought down to 7 Te storage tension using the next 3 driven sheaves.

MobilizationThe Fiber Rope Deployment System was mobilized on Toisa Perseus in September 2006.

Fig. 9: FRDS being lifted onboard Toisa Perseus.

The system was installed to work over the side of the vessel:

Fig. 10: FRDS installed on Toisa Perseus.

To assure some tension on the Fiber Rope Deployment System during recovery of the empty hook, a clump weight of 0.8 Te is used. A 25 meters pennant with protective jacket on sub-ropes is used between the clump weight and the ROV hook. This was installed to avoid damage on the rope during ROV handling of the hook.

Installation tasksThe installation campaign in Gulf of Mexico started in September 2006 and lasted for 9 months. 190 deployments and recoveries to water depths between 2000-2750m were performed. The types of operations were:• Installationofmudmats.• Loweringandstabbingofsecondendofumbilicals.• Installationofmanifolds.• Installationofspoolpiecesandjumpers.• InstallationofX-masthree.

The installation tasks were done by deploying the units by the vessel crane and make load transfer to the ODIM CTCU™ at 1000 meters water depth. The payload was then deployed to a few meters above the seabed. Positioning and landing was done using active heave compensation. In parallel with the installation by the ODIM CTCU™, the crane recovered to deck and launched the next unit to 1000m. Thus, the ROV needed for load transfer from the crane to the ODIM CTCU™ did not have to go all the way back to the surface.

For the lowering of second end of umbilicals, the load was cross hauled from the vessel A&R winch working through the moonpool to the FRDS at suitable depth and lowered to the sea bed. During stabbing of the umbilical


into the Stab and Hinge Over Mudmats, active heave compensation has proven to be very useful.

Fig. 11: FRDS in operation on Toisa Perseus.

To date (January 2008) 320 lifts have been completed with the FRDS in the Gulf of Mexico and Nigeria since September 2006. The general feedback from the operator of the system is very positive. Especially the high speed capability of the system has provided a considerable time saving for these ultra deep water installations.

The rope has also performed very well, without any major issues.

The general arrangement of the system with the storage winch and spooling device on top of the ODIM CTCU™ provides a very compact solution. Comparable steel wire systems available today, require considerably more deck space due to fleet angle for spooling.

It should be noted that the ODIM CTCU™ system can easily be split into separate units for arrangement under deck. Housing in protected area is always an advantage with regard to maintenance and life of equipment.

Delivery time for steel wire is considerable today partly because of the general shortage of steel in general. Further, a complete length of steel wire must be provided to change the lifting line while a short section for repair will suffice in most cases for fiber rope.

The first inspection point for the fiber rope was reached after 6 months and 140 installations. Full internal and external inspection was performed at the actual point of

rope having seen the highest number of bend cycles. No broken or damage fibers were recorded, and outer layer was also found to be in good condition.

The limit for taking out a sample was reached after approximately 300 lifts by the end of 2007. A section of the rope has been cut out and sent to laboratory for residual strength test. Data from this test combined with the recorded bend history from the Rope Management System will be used to adjust the retirement criteria and improve the wear calculation model for the rope.

SCALING-UP OF THE TECHNOLOGy In September 2006 a new DEMO 2000 funded project was launched with the objective to scale up the technology from the 46 Te safe working load unit to a 125Te safe working load unit. This project includes a field pilot at the end which will demonstrate a two fall operation in deep water using fiber rope. The system is designed with a capacity of 250Te to 3000m in two fall operation. The main performances of the system are:• SafeWorkingLoad:125Te.• PeakLoad:162.5Te(DynamicAmplificationFactorof

1.3).• Speedcapacity:1.5m/s(optional2m/s).• Continuousdeploymentspeedat125Te:0.5m/s.• Continuousrecoveryspeedat125Te:0.3m/s.• Continuousrecoveryspeedemptyhook:1.5m/s.• ActiveHeaveCompensation:4.8mpeaktopeakat

10 s period (optional 6.4 m peak to peak at 10 s period with a more power ful drive line).

• Storagewinchcapacity:7000mof88mmfiberrope.• Can lift 250Te to 3000mwater depth in two fall

configuration.

Fig. 12: 125Te ODIM CTCU™ system with storage winch capacity for 7000m.


The status of this project is that the system is in production in Norway, through a commercial contract with Aker Oilfield Services. Aker intends to use the system on a vessel that shall operate for Petrobras installing X-mas threes in ultra deep water. The system will go through a comprehensive system test program in the first quarter of 2009.

The field pilot will take place after installation on the vessel, assumed to be in the second half of 2009. The field pilot is planned to cover a 100Te lift to 1000m in two fall configuration.

Further scaling of the technology for heavy lift vessel is also in process, through a commercial contract with Havila Shipping for a 250Te ODIM CTCU™ system. Rope manufacturers are now capable of fabricating braided fiber ropes with diameters up to approximately 175mm with an MBL exceeding 2000Te. In parallel with the commercial contracts for such large ODIM CTCU™ systems, the industry would like to better understand the long term behavior of large diameter fibre ropes, typically 130 – 140 mm.

Today, there are no test facilities capable of doing dynamic testing like Cyclic Bend Over Sheave (CBOS) at these sizes. However, ODIM is now in process of establishing test-facilities capable of doing full CBOS tests on large sizes, as part of a Joint Industry Project (JIP) together with some of the major oil-companies and marine contractors as partners. This project is also funded by Demo 2000 and Innovation Norway.

The heavy lift industry has also shown interest for this scaling of the ODIM CTCU™ technology. Installation capacity of 2000 Te up to 3500 meters water depth is currently in focus. Fiber rope can be produced in any length. Due to its excellent splicing properties, it is also a viable solution to produce very long lengths in sections suitable for transportation and handling and then join the sections together during spooling onto the system. In this way it is realistic to have systems configured for multi fall configuration even in ultra deep water operations. E.g. to install 2000 Te in 3500 m water depth, 2 off 250Te systems working in 4 fall configuration can be used. A rope of 14500 m will be needed on both winches for this purpose.

Fig. 13: Heavy lift system with capacity of 2000 Te to 35000 m.

CONCLUSIONS

The challenges associated with using fiber rope in lifting operations have been solved and fully field proven.

Extensive use of the ODIM CTCU™ system in ultra deep water installations in Gulf of Mexico and west of Nigeria have further demonstrated the suitability of this technology in the most challenging offshore environments, and also proven that it outperforms steelwire with respect to service life, by a factor of 4 – 6 times.

Management of rope condition is crucial for utilization and control of repairable rope. Methods and tools for this purpose have been developed through this project, and field experience is being built in a structured way by data collection, inspections and sample testing.

Scaling up the ODIM CTCU™ technology to 125Te and 250Te is in process through commercial contracts with Aker Oilfield Services and Havila Shipping.

Investment in rope test facilities is currently in process, in order to be able to predict long term behavior of large size diameter fibre ropes. This is part of a new industry initiative through a Joint Industry Project. .

Heavy lift systems for ultra deep water installation of modules up to 2000 Te is also being studied at conceptual levels.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The important work of establishing a rope retirement criteria was conducted by Dan Davidson on behalf of Subsea 7.

Thanks to Subsea 7 for being the first company to actually take this technology into commercial use.

Thanks to Aker Oilfield Services for taking this technology further up to 125Te system being subject for verification of durability of using double-fall configuration.

Thanks to Havila Shipping for taking this technology further up to 250Te system, now being subject for high attention amongst the heavy lifting industry, focused on how to get complete subsea processing systems down to seabed levels up to 3000 mtrs. water depth.

Finally, thanks to the major oil companies, marine contractors, DEMO 2000 and Innovations Norway for financially support of the past and currently ongoing JIP's.

REFERENCES

1. DISH (Deep water Installation of Subsea Hardware) Joint Industry Project, www.Dish-jip.com, (2001-2006).

2. FRDS/ODIM CTCU™ related JIP funded through DEMO2000, www.demo2000.no


Service Experience: MAN B&W Engines

Mikael C. Jensen & Stig B. JakobsenMAN Diesel, Low Speed, Copenhagen (Denmark)

CONTENTS

Introduction Service Experience Update - ME system - General update on ME and MC engines Low Sulphur Fuel Operation Laying-up of Vessels Slow Steaming Conclusion References

INTRODUCTION This paper deals with the latest service experience updates relevant for MAN B&W two-stroke engines. The paper also deals with relevant topics related to vessel operation, such as operation on distillates, laying-up of vessels and slow steaming.

SERVICE EXPERIENCE UPDATE ME system Over the past years, we have described various areas with room for improvement on the ME system in a number of papers dealing with service experience. The most recent paper is Service Experience 2008, MAN B&W Engines, Ref. [1]. In this paper, we will comment on issues which are still undergoing investigation at the time of writing. Also, future planned upgrades will be mentioned. Especially the trouble shooting tools implemented in a new ECS software version will be commented on.

Cavitation damage in the exhaust valve actuation system Fig. 1 shows cavitation damage in the high pressure pipe between the exhaust actuator and the exhaust valve. Also cavitation damage in the actuator top cover and in the top of the exhaust valve can be seen. This kind of damage is seen on the large bore versions of the ME engine (80, 90 and 98 bore). It is not seen to the same extent on all units on an engine. Therefore, damage can be counteracted with relatively small changes.

Fig. 1: Cavitation in hydraulic exhaust actuation system

Service tests where the proportional feature of the FIVA valve is used are presently ongoing. So far, we have only used the proportional control of the FIVA valve for injection rate shaping, but now we also use it in order to open and close the exhaust valve gently. Fig. 2 shows the original lifting curve and the modified lifting curve of the exhaust valve. No big change can be seen. However, the oil pressure fluctuations in the actuator system are modified to some extent, and we expect that this will reduce/eliminate the cavitation damage in the exhaust actuation system.


Fig. 2: Use of proportional (FIVA) control for exhaust valve actuation

Cavitation in the pilot step of the FIVA valve We have seen cavitation attacks on the pilot spools of both the Curtis Wright FIVA valve, Fig. 3, and the Parker valve on the MAN B&W FIVA valve, Fig. 4. Presently, this limits the overhaul intervals of the FIVA valves to some 8,000-10,000 hours. Our goal for overhaul intervals on FIVA valves is 32,000 hours.

Fig. 3: Curtis Wright FIVA: cavitation on pilot spool

Fig. 4: MAN B&W FIVA: cavitation on Parker valve pilot spool

The cavitation damage on the Parker spools are mainly related to the tank ports for the pilot step. We have therefore designed two (2) service tests, which are presently gaining hours on two (2) 12K98ME plants. Fig. 5 shows the test FIVA with the pilot tank port connected to the FIVA main spool pressurised tank port. Fig. 6 shows the other FIVA with the pilot tank port connected to a completely pressure-less drain.

Fig. 5: MAN B&W FIVA: cavitation countermeasure test 1

Fig. 6: MAN B&W FIVA: cavitation countermeasure test 2

On the basis of the results of these tests, we will conclude final countermeasures in order to extend overhaul intervals to an acceptable time span. Feedback sensors with Canon connectors A small, but irritating, failure mode in the ME system has been loose connections in the Canon connectors on the feedback sensors, Fig. 7. Loose connections here are very difficult to find in service as they are often also intermittent. We have now introduced sensors which are equipped with cables coming directly out of the sensors and then connected through conventional junction boxes, Fig. 8. The so-called ‘tail solution’ has reduced failures resulting from loose connections.


Fig. 7: Canon connectors on feedback sensors: loose connection

Fig. 8: Tail solution for feedback sensor

Hard disks for the Main Operating Panel (MOP) In the computers driving the MOPs, we have changed the standard for the hard disk used in this application. Originally, the computers were equipped with conventional hard disks and their lifetime was not satisfactory. Therefore, we introduced solid state disks as a new standard, Fig. 9. These disks are also used as replacement for MOPs in service.

Fig. 9: Solid state disk (SSD) to replace conventional hard disks in MOPs

Multi Purpose Controller (MPC) quality In order to improve the quality of the MPCs, we have introduced so-called ‘burn-in tests’ of all produced MPCs. The background is an investigation of more than 100 returned MPCs. Of these, approx. 25% did not show failure until they were subjected to the ‘burn-in test’. With the introduction of full scale burn-in tests, we expect that the MPC failure rate will be reduced significantly, especially during the commissioning stage (shop test, quay trial and sea trial). New updated ECS software A new version of the Engine Control System (ECS) software will soon be introduced both to new engines and to engines in service. The main focus for this software is to provide better trouble shooting tools onboard vessels equipped with ME engines. Various new screens on the MOP have been developed in order to assist the engine crew in more qualified trouble shooting. An example is the “HCU event recorder” and the related MOP screen, Fig. 10. The ‘HCU event recorder’ records a number of predetermined signals related to the HCU (Hydraulic Cylinder Unit) continuously. If an alarm related to the HCU is activated, a record of signals is stored and can later be seen on the MOP, some r/min before activation of the alarm and some r/min after. This will assist the engine crew in locating the reason for the alarm.

Fig. 10: New ECS software with trouble shooting screens

Another example of improved support to the engine crew is the tacho adjustment screen, Fig. 11. This MOP screen assists the engine crew in making re-adjustment of the tacho system.


Fig. 11: New ECS software with trouble shooting screens

There are a number of other new screens relating to the HCU and the HPS (Hydraulic Power Supply). Altogether, the new software will enable much more qualified trouble shooting onboard. Off-engine located MPCs As an alternative to the MPCs being located on the engine, we have introduced a design where the MPCs are located in larger cabinets, Fig. 12, which can be located away from the engine, e.g. in the engine control room, in a switchboard room or directly in the engine room. From now on, we will gain experience with respect to i.a. lifetime of the MPCs. Also, possible production benefits of the alternative execution can be measured in the future.

Fig. 12: Large cabinet suited for engine control room placement

Drain box for the exhaust valve drain lines On 80 and 98 bore engines, we have seen breakage of the drain lines from the exhaust valve. A design with a so-called drain box, Fig. 13, has been tested successfully. This design will counteract the drain line breakage trouble.

Fig. 13: Exhaust valve drain line with drain box

General update on ME and MC engines

Apart from the ME system specific issues, we also have certain areas of attention which are common for the electronically controlled ME engines and the camshaft controlled MC engines. In this paper, we also focus on cylinder condition of large bore engines, lifting bracket cracks on large bore engine bedplates and cracks in the first generation of welded cylinder frames.

Over the years, bearings, especially main bearings, have also been an area of concern. However, this issue has generally been solved. Therefore, we will not focus on bearings in this paper. Cylinder condition, large bore engines In general, we experience very satisfactory wear figures on both cylinder liners and piston rings on large bore engines. This has made it possible to extend overhaul intervals and when applying condition based overhaul (CBO), strategy overhaul intervals above 32,000 hours (5 years) can be obtained. This is described in our service letter SL07-483/HRR, Ref. [2], and further in the paper Service Experience 2008, MAN B&W Engines, Ref. [1]. However, from time to time, the general good wear figures are disturbed by cylinder liner scuffing. The reasons for cylinder liner scuffing are many, and often more than one reason is involved. The following major


reasons for cylinder liner scuffing include: • Borepolishduetosurplusofalkaliadditive(excessive

lubrication) • Brokendownoilfilmasa resultof too rapid load

changes • Wateringressduetoinefficientwaterseparation• Catfines in thefuel,wearoutof theCLgrooves/

broken rings • Running-inproblems. Lately, we have had to focus on running-in problems, typically at running hours between 500 and 1,000. The reason for the running-in problems is the piston ring quality in combination with the cylinder liner surface quality. Fig. 14 shows a severe case of running-in problems due to embedded iron on the outside of the running-in alu-coat layer, peeling-off of the alu-coat/iron layer and subsequent scuffing. A detailed analysis of such problems has led to increased focus on: • Pistonringquality• Linersurfacequality/finish.

Fig. 14: Increased focus on piston ring quality and liner surface quality

Fig. 15 shows cross sections of piston rings with iron and cermet (delaminated) layers positioned on top of the alu-coat layer during running-in leading to unstable cylinder condition caused by the quality of the cermet coating.

Fig. 15: Piston ring quality

Fig. 16 shows an example of off-spec. honing of the cylinder liner surface. The honed area must nominally be 50% of the liner surface. As can be seen on the photo, the honed area is much smaller resulting in much tougher running-in and an increased production of ‘liner-iron’. The photo shows an unused spare cylinder liner on a vessel where cylinder liner scuffing has occurred.

Fig. 16: Cylinder liner quality: insufficient plateau honing

Cracks in the bedplate lifting bracket of K98 engines In 2008, cracks in the lifting bracket on K98 bedplates were discovered on engines produced 5-7 years earlier, Fig. 17. Soon after the first cracks were discovered, a so-called ‘Circular Letter’ to all owners/operators of K98 engines was issued, see Fig. 18. In this letter we asked for help to inspect for lifting bracket cracks. Furthermore, we informed about preventive countermeasures, which consist of burr grinding of the weld seams on the aftmost and foremost brackets. Also, a repair procedure was developed when the cracks first occurred. A modified bracket profile has been designed for new engines, Fig. 19.

Fig. 17: Lifting bracket cracks


Fig. 18: Circular letter: K98 lifting bracket cracks

Fig. 19: Lifting bracket cracks: design update

Due to the high number of K98 engines in service, these rectifications are still ongoing and, fortunately, we are able to do this work without disturbing the operation of the vessels involved.

Welded cylinder frames As an alternative to cast iron cylinder frames a welded version of the cylinder frame has been introduced.

Fig. 20 shows a 7-cylinder welded cylinder frame with an integrated scavenge air receiver. The first generation of the welded cylinder frame showed, in some cases, cracks originating from the stay bolt covers, Fig. 21. A new bent type stay bolt cover has been designed, and attachment to the main cylinder frame structure at a position with lower stress level has been realised.

Fig. 20: Welded cylinder frame with integrated scavenge air receiver


Fig. 21: Welded cylinder frame: fatigue crack originating from stay bolt covers

Fig. 22 shows the newest version of the welded cylinder frame for a K80ME-C Mk 9. On the exhaust side, the bent type stay bolt cover is applied, and on the pump side the stay bolt cover is omitted.

Fig. 22: Welded cylinder frame: old and new type stay bolt cover designs

We are confident that the crack problems related to the stay bolt cover plates have now been eliminated. For engines in service with first generation welded cylinder frames, repair work is in progress.

LOW SULPHUR FUEL OPERATION MAN B&W two-stroke engines can operate on both heavy fuel oils (HFOs) with a varying amount of sulphur, marine diesel oil (MDO) and marine gas oil (MGO). All fuels are specified in accordance with ISO 8217 and CIMAC recommendation 21. Also bio fuels (with separate fuel specification) are now used on MAN B&W two-stroke engines. Local and international restrictions on sulphur emissions are the reason why an increased focus on low sulphur

fuels is seen today. Sulphur emissions can be limited in two ways: 1. By making rules for a maximum amount of sulphur

in the fuel. Fig. 23 shows the “road-map” for such legislation globally and locally in so-called SECAs (Sulphur Emission Control Areas)

2. By applying abatement technologies on board the

vessels allowing the vessels to continue operating on a high sulphur content HFO. The driving force for such technologies is the large price difference between various HFOs and distillates, see Fig. 24.

Fig. 23: Sulphur reduction ‘road map’

Fig. 24: Cost difference: HFO vs. distillates

When running on low sulphur fuels, a number of issues of interest in relation to operational aspects can be mentioned. Many of these are dealt with in detail in our service letter, SL09-515/CXR, Ref. [3]. These issues are discussed one by one in the following. A. Catfines in low sulphur HFOsFrom a large number of bunker analyses it can be seen that there is a tendency towards a higher amount of catfines in fuels with lower sulphur contents. This requires increased focus on optimal function of the fuel


treatment plants on board vessels operating on low sulphur fuels.

B. Cylinder lubrication and low sulphur fuelsIt is well-established that MAN B&W two-stroke engines, to a certain degree, need cylinder oil feed rates proportional to the sulphur content in the fuel. This is due to the fact that we prefer to have a controlled amount of cold corrosion on the cylinder liner wall. However, we also have other requirements for lubrication apart from controlling the acid neutralisation. These requirements presently put a minimum limit to the feed rate of 0.6 g/kWh. Fig. 25 illustrates the degree of over-additivation when operating on various cylinder oils (various BN numbers), and it can be seen that the need for lower BN cylinder oils will persist as fuel sulphur content limits are tightened.

Fig. 25: Low sulphur fuel operation: need for lower BN oil in cylinder

C. Coping with low sulphur fuel in the design of the combustion chamberDesign-wise, we can lower the cylinder liner temperature by increasing the cooling intensity of the cylinder liner. By doing this, we can provoke an increased amount of cold corrosion when operating on low sulphur fuels. For some engine types, we have introduced such colder cylinder liners. Also the piston ring pack has undergone changes which will optimise the performance in a low sulphur fuel regime. We have introduced cermet coating on nos. 1 and 4 piston rings to make them less dependent on cold corrosion on the cylinder liner wall. D. Viscosity issuesViscosity has been dealt with in detail in the above-mentioned service letter on distillate fuel operation, Ref. [3]. When using distillates in order to adhere to the

rules for sulphur emission, viscosity often becomes an issue. Our updated instructions regarding fuel viscosity are illustrated in Fig. 26. Detailed recommendations regarding checks to be made before entering ports and other narrow water passages are outlined in the service letter, Ref. [3]. Also fuel cooling systems are presented. The aim of these systems is to lower the temperature in order to maintain viscosity of 2 cSt at engine inlet.

Fig. 26: Fuel temperature vs. viscosity

E. Burning characteristics for low sulphur fuelsFrom time to time, we hear that slow burning characteristics of fuels give rise to concern. These slow burning cases are more frequently seen in cases of low sulphur fuels. However, such slow burning characteristics will not affect MAN B&W two-stroke engines. The reason is the slow speed concept with the relatively long combustion duration. However, for four-stroke medium and high speed engines the matter is different and slow burning fuels may cause trouble on these engine types. F. Abatement technologiesWe are involved in various projects where scrubbers are used to clean the exhaust gas for sulphur and other particles. The driving force behind these projects is the wish to maintain operation on the cheaper HFO, Fig. 24. G. Gas burning two-stroke engines: ME-GI Another future way of avoiding sulphur in the exhaust is to change from diesel fuel to natural gas. In this way, SO

X

can be reduced by typically 90%. We believe that natural gas will be the future fuel not only on LNG carriers, but probably also on other commercial types of vessels.

LAyING-UP OF VESSELS Because of the current economic condition in the world, we have been requested to renew instructions in relation


to laying-up of vessels. We have recently issued two service letters on this topic. The first one, SL09-502/SBJ, Ref. [4], deals with the so-called hot laying-up where auxiliary engines are kept in operation continuously in order to generate the necessary power to run, from time to time, as for example the main lube oil pumps for the main engine. The second service letter, SL09-510/SBJ, Ref. [5], deals with cold laying-up of vessels where also the auxiliary engines are closed down. In this case, power for dehumidifiers, various pumps and the turning gear for the main engine is typically taken from an on deck containerised power pack. A number of items are to be considered in relation to the method of laying-up and some decisions are needed. Some of these items are: • Modeoflaying-up(hotorcold)• Maintenance work to be done during laying-up

period • Levelofmanningduringlaying-upperiod• Customised laying-up check list (to assist when

ending laying-up period) • Estimateoftimetore-establishengineoperationafter

laying-up period. In detail, our service letters deal with: a. Corrosion and how to avoid it. The use of

dehumidifiers is discussed. The use of preservation oils on machined surfaces inside as well as outside the engine compartments is described. During the monthly turning of the main engine, preservation oils have to be re-established. Both main engine and auxiliary engines are dealt with in this respect.

b. Detailed instructions for preservation of main engine

and auxiliary engines, including preservation of supply systems, are outlined in the service letters. Special attention to bacterial growth in fuel oils may be needed with use of biocides to control the bacteria level.

c. Turbocharger preservation is also dealt with. Here, makers distinguish between short laying-up periods, below 6 months, where the rotor may stay in the T/C casing, and longer than 6 months laying-up periods where the complete rotor has to be dismantled, cleaned and stored according to the maker’s instructions.

d. Conservation of electrical components has its own chapter in the service letters. This is especially relevant when dealing with laying-up of electronically controlled ME engines.

e. Recommended routine checks during the laying-up

period is described in detail. Examples of checks are daily recording of the humidity level, monthly oil and cooling water circulation, pre-lubrication of intermediate and propeller shaft bearing before turning of the main engine, monthly check and recording of water content in the lube oil and monthly check of the cooling water inhibitor level.

We are still gaining relevant experience in relation to laying-up of vessels and a revision/extension of the service letters is expected to be launched by the end of 2009.

SLOW STEAMING Slow steaming has also become very relevant due to the financial situation in the world. Also on this topic, we have issued service letters relevant for MAN B&W two-stroke engines, SL08-501/SBE, Ref. [6], and SL09-511/MTS, Ref. [7]. The reason for the desire for slow steaming can be seen on Fig. 27. A vast amount of fuel can be saved per tonnes-mile of seaborne travel when reducing the ship speed and thereby the engine load.

Fig. 27: Low load operation

Fortunately, we have been able to support continuous operation down to 10% load without any engine modifications, except the use of slide fuel valves.


There are various means to optimise operation at low load. Some of these are: • Partloadoptimisation,Fig.28• Turbocharger with VTA (Variable Turbine Area),

Fig. 29 • Sequentialturbocharging,Fig.30• Turbochargercut-out,Fig.31.

Fig. 28: Part optimisation ME/ME-C and MC/MC-C

Fig. 29: Turbocharger with variable turbine area (VTA)

Fig. 30: Sequential turbocharging

Fig. 31: Turbocharger cut-out

All methods will increase the scavenge air pressure at part load. The methods are more or less easy/costly to retrofit on vessels in service. However, it should be kept in mind that this optimisation only gives the last marginal benefit of slow steaming. The major benefit comes just from moving the ‘speed-handle’ down.

CONCLUSION This paper has given an update on recent service experience and, in addition, it has touched upon other areas of interest for the operators of MAN B&W two-stroke engines forced upon the industry owing to legislation as well as because of the prevailing financial situation in the world today. We will continue our efforts to adopt and optimise our product under these circumstances.

REFERENCES 1. Service Experience 2008, MAN B&W Engines, 5510-

0039-00ppr, Jun 2008 2. SL07-483/HRR, Condition-based Piston Overhaul,

August 2007 3. SL09-515/CXR, Guidelines on Operation on Distillate

Fuels, September 2009 4. SL09-502/SBJ, Laying up vessels, January 2009 5. SL09-510/SBJ, Laying up vessels, April 2009 6. SL08-501/SBE, Low Load Update, October 2008 7. SL09-511/MTS, Low Load Operation, May 2009


Marine engineering students need to understand the theoretical concepts of various engineering processes besides operational competence. A missing link is found existing between mathematical principles learnt in the classroom and the experience gained at the simulator environment. The procedures of mathematical development and its application in engine room simulation are not well understood by students. Teaching aids are very much needed to help bridge the gap of understanding basic concepts and principles behind an engine room simulation. A spreadsheet based mathematical model is developed based on the ISO proposed guidelines to evaluate the brake specific fuel consumption (bsfc) for a typical marine engine. The controlling parameters such as fuel qualities and operating conditions in determining the bsfc are identified and described. The mathematical model also takes the ambient sensitivity into consideration. The output graphical information has enhanced the training and assessment of students in the engine room simulator.

Ivan C K Tam & Prasanta Mukherjee, Singapore Maritime Academy, Singapore PolytechnicRajan Bhandari, Executive Ship Management Pte Ltd

Using Mathematical Modelling Technique to Enhance Engine Room Simulation Training and Assessment

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Experimental Data from Simulator

The importance and benefits of simulator training are well documented and recognized by both industry and IMO. As a result, engine room simulators have been widely used to train the present generation of marine engineering students to achieve a high level of operational competency. One of the engine processes of importance to marine engineering students is the evaluation of engine power and the brake specific fuel consumption (bsfc) as stated in the IMO model course [R1] and STCW95 [R10]. Experimental data on engine torque, speed, power, fuel flow rate and bsfc can be obtained from an engine room simulator which is assumed to be close to practical situation.

Figure 1: Typical experimental data on bsfc reported from engine room simulator


1.2 Engineering Formula of bsfc from Textbook [R2]

For a given torque and speed, the power may be calculated with the standard equation relating torque in [Nm], rotational speed in [RPM] and power [W],

Calculation of the brake specific fuel oil consumption (bsfc) requires the engine power and the consumed fuel oil amount known for a certain period of time.

It is common to quote bsfc in units of [g/kWh] in marine practice. These two formulae are well conversed by students in classroom environment. The results can be taken and compared to those obtained from engineering formulae and mathematical model.

Fig. 2: Students are given part task training and familiarisation at engine room simulator

Fig. 3: Senior students are trained in full mission engine simulator control room

Fig.4: Students are trained and assessed under

realistic engine room environment

2 MATHEMATICAL MODELS

The textbook formula though a quick and simple solution, any further consideration of ambient effects and fuel quality will be too laborious without the use of programming. However, the full computer program development will be too complex and the knowledge of a language is a prerequisite. Thus, a spreadsheet approach is proposed to show students engine simulation from the first principle. The controlling parameters in the engine power and bsfc are identified and considered. Correction factors based on the ISO Standards are compensated for evaluation of ambient condition sensitive data are also demonstrated.

2.1 Fuel Flow and Density Correction

Since the fuel flow measurement on board ships is obtained by flow meter in volume units, it will be necessary to know the oil density, in order to convert to mass units. The oil density is a function of temperature which corresponds to the temperature at measuring point, i.e. flow meter. The density at the measuring point can be determined from bunker specification. Normally, in bunker specification, the density is indicated at 15°C. The correction factors are tabulated in Tables 53A and 53B of the revised API-ASTM-IP Petroleum Measurement Tables (API 2540; ASTM D 1250; IP200). Correlation equation can be used to estimate the variation between oil density and temperature of hydrocarbon fluids [R1, R3].

€

P [W ] =τ[Nm]∗ω[RPM]

60× 2π

€

bsfc =m•

[gs−1]

P[W ]


Where ρt = oil density at temperature t°C [kg/m3] ρ15 = oil density at base temperature 15°C [kg/m3]Vt = oil volume at temperature t°C [m3]V15 = oil volume at base temperature 15°C [m3]∆t = t°C – 15°Cα15 = tangent thermal expansion coefficient per °C at base temperature 15°C.

The tangent coefficient differs for each of the major groups of hydrocarbons. It is obtained from the following relationship:

Where K0 and K1 are constants equal to 186.969 and 0.48618 respectively for fuel oils with density range 839 to 1075 [kg/m3]. The consumed oil quantity in kilogram is obtained from the product of measured volume and density.

2.2 Correction of Lower Calorific Value

In order to compare fuel consumption measurements carried out for various types of fuel oil, allowance must be made for the differences in the lower calorific value (LCV) of the fuel concerned. Normally, gas oil of an approximately LCV 42,707 kJ/kg will be used for testing on the test bed. If no other instructions have been given by the ship owner, it is recommended to convert to this value [R4].

Correction factor for LCV for bunker oil = LCV ÷ 42,707

On the other hand, the lower calorific value (LCV) of bunker oil may not be available in fuel analysis. LCV in [MJ/kg], of residual fuel oil can be calculated based on density at 15°C and sulphur, ash and water content from the formula in ISO 8217:2005(F), [R11].

LCV = (52.19 – 8.802 ρ152 x106 ) x

[ 1 - 0.01( ww + wa + ws ) ] + 0.0942 ws

Where ρ15 is the density of fuel at 15°C, in kilograms per cubic metre;

ww is the water content, expressed as a mass fraction;

wa is the ash content, expressed as a mass fraction;

ws is the sulphur content, expressed as a mass fraction.

2.3 Power Adjustment for Ambient Conditions

The engine power and specific fuel consumption are both affected by ambient conditions such as air temperature, coolant temperature, air pressure and humidity [R8]. All these factors have to be considered and referred to baseline condition if accuracy is needed.

Px = α Pr

Px brake power under ambient condition on sitePr brake power under standard reference conditions

2.3.1 Power Adjustment Factor, α

α = k – 0.7 (1 – k) ( 1 / ηm -1)

where ηm is the mechanical efficiency. For example, α = 0.765 if ηm = 0.8 and k = 0.8

2.3.2 Ratio of Indicated Power, k

a, m, n, s are factors and exponents to be stated by engine manufacturers.

Px ambient total barometric pressure on site [kPa]Pr standard reference total barometric pressure [kPa]Psx ambient saturated water vapour pressure on site

[kPa]Psr standard reference saturated water vapour pressure

[kPa]Tr standard reference ambient air thermodynamic

temperature [K]Tx ambient air thermodynamic temperature on site

[K]Tcr standard reference charge air coolant thermodynamic

temperature [K]Tcx ambient charge air coolant thermodynamic

temperature on site [K]Φx ambient relative humidity on site [%]Φr ambient reference relative humidity [%]

€

ρt

ρ15=

V15Vt

= exp[−α15Δt (1+ 0.8α15Δt )]

€

α15

=K0

+K1ρ15

ρ152

€

k = [Px −aφxPsx

Pr −aφrPsr

]m× [

Tr

Tx

]n × [

Tcr

Tcx

]s


Figure 5: Marine Diesel Engine ISO Specific Fuel Consumption Calculation

1

Engine Speed rpm 74.00

Engine brake Torque kNm 2161.07

Total Power

Engine Power kW 16746.69

Supply Flowmeter

Measured Consumption m3 10.98

Measuring period hr 3.00

Measured temperature 0C 119.00

dt- difference from 15C 0C 104.00

Density of oil at measuring point Kg/m3 863.70 IP200, API 2540, ASTM D 1250

Supply Fuel flow for one hour Kg/h 3159.71

Fuel Data

Density at 15oC Kg/m3 936.40

Sulphur % 3.00

Lower Calorific Value

Bunker fuel kJ/kg 40975.64 ISO 8217:2005(E)

Fuel Consumption for one hour

Fuel Supply-Fuel Return flow for one hour Kg/h 3159.71

Specific fuel consumption

Bunker fuel SFC g/kWh 188.68

SFC corrected to ISO Standard Gas Oil

Gas oil LCV kJ/kg 42707.00

LCV Corrected SFC g/kWh 181.03

ISO Standard Reference Conditions

Total barometric pressure kPa 100.00 ISO 15550

Air temperature 0C 25.00

Relative humidity % 30.00

Charge air coolant temperature 0C 25.00

Water vapour pressure kPa 0.94 Table B1 ISO 3046-1:2002 (E)

Site Ambient Condition

Total barometric pressure kPa 101.30

Air temperature 0C 35.00

Relative humidity % 70.00

Charge air coolant temperature 0C 45.00

Water vapour pressure (fXPsx) kPa 3.90 Table B1 ISO 3046-1:2002 (E)

Ratio of indicated power k 3.5155198669 equation 5 ISO 3046-1

Power adjustment factor α 3.7111714121

Fuel consumption recalculation factor β 0.9472803804 equation 8 ISO 3046-1

ISO Corrected Specific Fuel

Consumption g/kWh 191.10 equation 7 ISO 3046-1

g/bhph 142.56


2.4 Fuel Consumption Adjustment for Ambient Condition

bsfcx = β bsfcr

where β = k / αbsfcx = brake specific fuel consumption under ambient conditionsbsfcr = brake specific fuel consumption under standard reference conditions

The detailed description on compensation gives students an insight of ambient condition on bsfc. The impact is expected to be small but significant for students to understand though the calculation is usually neglected on board ship.

3. NUMERICAL RESULTS

A typical set of data at 95% load is input to the mathematical model and the numerical results generated are shown in Fig. 2. The results show good agreement with textbook formula as well as results performance at simulator. The bsfc estimated by the mathematical model is slightly higher due to the compensation of ambient temperature and humidity on site with reference to the standard conditions. These steps are repeated for 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% and 110% load and all generate results show good agreement for all conditions. The effect of fuel quality and ambient condition on the bsfc ranges from 2% to 5%.

4. CONCLUSION

A spreadsheet based on the ISO proposed mathematical model was developed to evaluate the specific fuel consumption (sfc) for a typical marine engine. The controlling parameters such as operating conditions, fuel quality as well as ambient conditions in determining the sfc were identified and explained in procedures. The spreadsheet approach was used to replace complex computer programming and found to be a powerful tool in mathematical modelling and engine simulation. Generated results from the mathematical model were compared with textbook and engine room simulator. The non-linear behaviour of these engineering processes were demonstrated in the graphical output and appreciated easily by students. The teaching aids helped students get an insight of the mathematical principles and concepts in the development of engine room simulation.

5. REFERENCES

1. IMO Model Course 7.02 Thermodynamics and Heat Transmission – Engine Trial Data, (IMO Sales No. T702E), London 1999.

2. Rayner Joel, Basic Engineering Thermodynamics in SI Units, Harlow, Longman, 5th ed., 1996

3. Institute of Petroleum, Petroleum Measurement Manual, Part VII Density, Section 2, Continuous Density Measurement, Nov., 1983. London

4. MAN B&W Diesel A/S, Instructions Operation, Edition 01, 50-108, Operation Plate 70611, 2005


Rajan BhandariMIMarEST, First Class (Motor), MSNAMES.Email: [email protected]

5. CIMAC, Recommendations for Diesel Engine Acceptance Tests, Jan 1961

6. American Petroleum Institute, Petroleum Measurement Tables, Volume XI/XII 1982

7 American Petroleum Institute, Petroleum Measurement Tables, Volume VIII 1982

8. International Organisation for Standardisation, Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines – Performance, ISO 3046-1:2002(E)

9. ISO, Internal Combustion Engines – Determination and Method for the Measurement of Engine Power – General Requirements, ISO 15550: 2002(E)

10. IMO, International Convention on STCW, 1995, (IMO Sales No. 938)

11. ISO, Petroleum Products – Fuels-Class (F), Specifications of Marine Fuels, ISO 8217:2005 (E), 3rd Ed., 2005

*This paper was presented at ICERS9, 1 – 4 November, 2009, USMMA, Kings Point, N.Y., USA. The manuscript is adapted for publication in SNAMES 31st Annual Journal 2009.

Ivan C K TamBEng (Hons), PhD., MIMechE., MIMarEST., CMarEng., CEng.Email: [email protected]

Prasanta MukherjeeBE (Mech), Extra 1st Class(UK), MIE., MIMarEST., MSNAMES.Email: [email protected]

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I would like to sincerely thank a few individuals who have contributed to the successful publication of this year’s Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers Singapore (SNAMES) 31st Annual Journal. They are Joan Chua, Executive Secretary of SNAMES, Publication Committee Anis Hussain and Charles Fernandez, and the Publisher, Tan Chin Kar of JMatrix Consulting Pte Ltd.

2009 has been a particularly fruitful year for the Publication Committee. Over 15 papers of varying, interesting and relevant subject matters – from coping with the global financial downturn to innovation in human resource, from marine emissions to service experience – have been submitted. I want to thank each and every contributor, whether individual, group and organisation.

In particular, I would like to extend a special “Thank you” note to: i) Keppel Offshore & Marine Technology Centre

(KOMtech), who has granted SNAMES the permission to republish two of their key papers – “Design and Construction of Icebreakers for Operation in Barents Sea” and “Marine Emissions: Issues, Challenges and Potential Solutions”.

ii) BW Group Ltd – “Navigating Stormy Waters”.

The papers published in this Journal are categorised under two sections – the strategic papers and technical papers. I trust you will find them useful and insightful.

Editor’s Note

I am also very grateful to the various marine-related companies who have landed their unreserved support over the years to the Journal and SNAMES through their advertisement placements in the Journal. This year, over 14 advertisements are being featured, many of them full page advertisements.

Finally, I believe that as we witness the steady recovery in the global economy, we can together be hopeful that the marine industry will navigating itself towards a future of sustainability and growth.

Together with my colleagues at SNAMES, I wish you the very best in the coming years.

Sincerely

Low Kok ChiangChairman, Publication Committee

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