Underlaying concepts
Underlaying concepts
➣ A disruptive technical solution – The novelty of the ship is the design of the hull, both above and under water, with the hull itself acting as a symmetrical wing section.
Vindskip Design concept
The technical Vindskip®-concept consists of 3 main assets
These three parts is forming a Dynamic System giving fuel savings of estimated up to 60% compared to a reference ship.
1. Wind Power System
CFD-image of the pressure distribution over the hull.
The under pressure generated, or vacuum, in pink colour, is explaining the pull generated in the speed direction of the ship.
Aero Drag curve and power generation
Force coefficient for Aero Drag/ Pull Coefficient as function of the apparent wind Angle of Attack – Red curve valid – Giving pull from 18 degrees to 180 degrees
2. Cruise & propulsion power control
A multi-fuel solution builds the propulsion system. It has been devised to meet the Vindskip® requirements that retains a high level of efficiency over a wide range of power outputs.
The system is able to run on different modes and on different fuels, giving different specific fuel consumption.
| Modes and Fuels of the Propulsion system |
| The Main Engine output is 5400 kW at 750 rpm – able to run on LNG & Biogas |
| The Gen set 1 output is 3450 kW at 720 rpm – able to run on LNG & Biogas |
| The Gen set 2 output is 3600 kW at 720 – able to run on MDO & Biofuel |
3. Weather Routing module version Vindskip®
An integrated performance prediction and weather routing tool has been developed by Fraunhofer CML for the Vindskip® wind assisted hybrid propulsion concept. The performance prediction approach utilizes a constraint optimization routine to balance aerodynamic and hydrodynamic forces to determine the total resistance equilibrium condition for three degrees of freedom.
In its simplest form, a weather routing might be the consideration of favourable wind angles in the route planning. However, neglecting the hydrodynamic response to the aerodynamic forces can cause significant errors in the prediction of the propulsion power demand and the corresponding fuel consumption.
This is what makes the Weather Routing Module version Vindskip® quite unique, enabling it to predict the fuel consumption with a high degree of accuracy on a given optimized route.
By the simulation of 9 transatlantic crossings in one year, using the weather routing module and historical weather data, the fuel consumption and route regularity has been well documented.
Route Calculations for Trans-Atlantic crossing Loop no 4 of 9