Investigation of the efficiency of wind-assisted systems using model-based design approach

Abstract

To achieve the goal of a 50% reduction of CO2 emission in the maritime industry by 2050, different systems and solutions were proposed by researchers. Rigid wind sails, rotor sails, suction wings, and kites were developed to contribute to cleaner and environment-friendly transportation by reducing total fuel and energy consumption. In the present study, a ship dynamics model of KVLCC2 consisting of hull, rudder, propeller, and sailing system was built considering the effects of wind and wave. Firstly, the amount of energy consumption reduction of both systems was examined under different wind directions and wind speeds. It was found that a single sailing system can reduce total energy consumption by up to 10%. Then, the effects of the ship speed, the position of the sailing system, and the number of sails on the reduction of energy consumption were examined. It was found that the amount of overall energy reduction reaches around 23% and 16% when the number of sails was increased to 10 rigid wind sails and 10 rotor sails, respectively. The effects of waves were also investigated, and it was revealed that wave forces decrease the percent energy reduction more when environmental conditions become more severe, starting from the Beaufort scale of 7.