Project Summary
This project targets the demonstration of a passive sub process required to efficiently inject lubricating air bubbles across the bottom of a ship in transit. The overarching aim is to collectively unlock the deployment opportunities needed to accelerate the de-carbonisation of the shipping sector.
Project Achievements
• Developed an Artificial Intelligence to enable real-world, optimised solutions against a complex set of constraints inherent in the planning and delivery of goods.
• The AI was initially optimised using simulated data – to test its capability in producing optimised solutions. The AI was shown to be effective in achieving this, with a good balance of computational load.
• Subsequently used real-world data as the input to ensure that the AI algorithm can still produce high quality outputs. This was demonstrated in a case study where a minimum saving of 7 Tonnes of CO2 could be achieved for 20,000 deliveries.
• Conducted customer surveys and interviews to confirm a number of hypotheses resulting in the fine-tuning of our exploitation plan following the completion of the TTRIG funded project.
Next Steps
What Next? ATL are applying for further grant funding to verify and enhance understanding of the ALS performance using CFD and EFD analysis, and to develop tailored ALS designs for four ship owners’ selected vessels. Moving forward, it is planned that each of these vessels will be fitted with ALS’ for testing and evaluation ahead of commercial product launch. Pay back on ALS investment is estimated at less than two years, with fuel consumption and CO2 emission reduced by between 10-12%.
