Fuel efficient drive train design for hopper dredgers
Type:
Presented during:
CEDA Dredging Days 2015 - Innovative Dredging Solutions for Ports, Rotterdam
Authors:
Den Boer LJA, Raimond CP, van der Blom EC and ten Heggeler OWJ - Royal IHC, the Netherlands
Abstract: One of the major drivers of reducing fuel consumption are the fuel costs. Fuel costs are a big part of the cost price per dredged cubic meter of soil. Another driver is that a lower fuel consumption directly results in lower CO2 emissions. This gives contractors an advantage at for example the ‘CO2 prestatieladder’. Contractors can get a fictitious discount on the public procurement of dredging projects of the Dutch government. Also IMO’s EEDI calculation method for dredgers’ CO2 index is ‘under construction’ and will make it possible to compare dredgers on their CO2 footprint.
The fuel consumption of a dredger depends highly on the operational profile and the drive train of the dredger. Therefore Royal IHC has developed the ‘Fuel Consumption Tool’ to predict the fuel consumption of a dredger for a certain operational profile. In the ‘Fuel Consumption Tool’, expertise on hydrodynamics, soil mechanics, mechanical, electrical and naval engineering are combined to determine the fuel consumption of hopper dredgers in certain operational environments. In this paper the Fuel Consumption tool is used to compare the fuel consumption of the following controllable pitch propellers (CPP) and fixed pitch propellers (FPP) drive trains:
- CPP direct-driven
- CPP two speed propulsion gearbox
- CPP with combinator curve
- CPP hybrid
- CPP with two speed gearbox, combinator curve and hybrid
- FPP direct-driven
- FPP electric-driven propulsion
This paper shows for a given operational profile which drive train is the most fuel efficient. But also which drive train gives the lowest price per dredged cubic meter of soil. So eventually the most efficient dredger for a particular dredging project can be designed. In the future a standard dredge cycle will be defined to be able to compare different type of drive trains on fuel consumption.
Key words: Fuel consumption, efficiency, hopper dredger, drive train, operational profile