The Norwegian industry cluster Green Shipping Program initiated in 2019 a pilot project to study how the needed fleet renewal within Coaster and Bulk carrier can be realized, but also contribute to the national target to reduce the GHG-emissions. The ZeroCoaster project brings the pilot study further
towards optimized system designs and verification of these, developing design solutions ensure operation with zero emissions of local pollution and greenhouse gases within reasonable cost. The main target was to prove that a zero-emission ship can be commercially competitive in comparison with traditional coaster vessels. For the design exploration studies conducted in the project, the cutting-edge CAE simulation driven design tools were employed to ensure a multi-variable optimization targeting the required key performance indicators (KPIs). Using the CAE platform of CAESES, a parametric model of the ship and propulsion system was developed, and software connections were established between various computational tools, resulting in a flexible multi-fidelity design workflow. On the side of the hydrodynamic solutions, the wake-adapted designs of a single propeller and a counter-rotating propellers (CRP) system were developed and compared in terms of vessel propulsive efficiency.
A multi-fidelity propeller design workflow connecting different computational tools by SINTEF Ocean employed in the ZeroCoster design tasks.
