Ship Ocean Foundation News

The Japanese Marine Equipment Association (JSMEA) and its constituents will again be demonstrating what they dub the most advanced and sophisticated technologies developed in Japan at SMM. During the exhibition, the Ship & Ocean Foundation (SOF) will present the concept of the Zohaku Web, a new system which was designed and created to enable the exchange of technical information between shipyards and marine equipment suppliers via Internet websites. The three-year project was carried out by SOF with grants from the Nippon Foundation since 1998. The project has attracted 100 organizations in Japan (current participants include 21 shipbuilders and 71 ship equipment manufacturers) and has quickly become a major product in the Japanese maritime market.

NKK Corp. has developed an ax-shaped bow that allows a reported 20 to 30 percent reduction in ships' sea margin compared with conventional bows. The company will fit the new bow to a 172,000-dwt Capesize bulk carrier which is currently under construction at the yard's Tsu Works, being built for Mitsui OSK Lines. As ship operators increasingly demand more efficient operation, particularly under rough conditions, NKK decided to focus on how to reduce a ship's resistance on the bow above the still water surface. In 1996, teaming with Osaka University marine engineering researchers, the company developed a sharp-edged bow, which proved effective in cutting through waves and reducing sea margin.

Tribon Solutions will promote the standardization of the shipbuilding CAD/CAM data exchange using XML (Extensible Markup Language) to become a de facto standard within the shipbuilding industry. Historically there have for many years been difficulties with the data exchange between various CAD/CAM systems because they all have unique data formats. There have partly been some practical data exchanges using standard data formats like IGES and DXF. These formats are based on geometry information and primarily used by the "general purpose CAD systems" for data exchange regarding drawings and solid models. Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (Class NK) and Tribon Solutions have together made intense research investigations using XML.

Considerable effort, particularly following the oil embargo of the 1970s, has been placed on reducing the fuel oil consumption of ships, a task readily handled by a series of improvements in hull shapes, the fitting of energy savings devices, and improvements to the performance of main engines. A group of engineers from the Tsu Research Laboratories — Koichiro Matsumoto, Kazuyoshi Hirota and Kenji Takagishi - however, noted that while performance in still water was gaining, other factors, namely wave resistance was taking its toll. Thus a study was launched to develop new ship shapes in order to reduce the resistance increase due to waves, in order to lower sea margin. NKK Corp.