Shuttle tanker fuel consumption numerical analysis for improving ship efficiency

Abstract

The fuel consumption analysis of a Suezmax tanker customized to the offloading operation in the brazilian coast is performed in order to verify the possible savings produced by the so-called “slow steaming” technique during navigation. This ship is equipped of a single engine/propeller but there is a trend of building new vessels considering an equivalent two engines–two propellers for better safety during navigation and offloading operations, therefore a comparison regarding the propulsive efficiency, fuel consumption, and operational conditions (max engine power, rotation, and cavitation limitations) is performed in order to verify the benefits of this new concept. The methodology applied is based on a mixed approach considering numerical simulations using CFD (computational fluid dynamics) and regression models available in the literature: the first one applied to compute the ship resistance and nominal wake fraction in the propeller plane and the second one applied for the propulsive efficiency prediction, as the propeller curves based on Wageningen B-series. The specific fuel oil consumption curves were obtained from the engine manufacturer catalogue.