Rolls-Royce Wins Propulsion Contract for Nine RoRo Vessels
Rolls-Royce Commercial Marine has won a significant contract to deliver the propulsion system to nine vessels to be built by Nanjing Jinling Shipyard Co in China for the Italian Grimaldi Group.
The nine 238 meter long vessels are so called Ro-Ro vessels (Roll-on-Roll-off) designed to transport over 7,800 linear meters of rolling units, equivalent to about 500 trailers. They are named the Grimaldi Green 5th Generation, and will be hybrid powered by combining use of traditional fossil fuels during operation and battery power when in port. The vessels are being designed by Knud E. Hansen in Denmark.
The delivery from Rolls-Royce includes steering gears and the Promas system, which integrates the propeller and the rudder into a single system to optimize hydrodynamic efficiency. A special hubcap is fitted to the propeller and streamlines the flow onto a bulb that is added to the rudder, effectively reducing flow separation immediately after the propeller. The result is an increase in propeller thrust as previously wasted energy is recovered from the flow. The addition of the bulb on the rudder also streamlines the flow aft of the rudder, further reducing drag.
Promas is a well proven a product developed and tested at the Rolls-Royce facility in Kristinehamn in Sweden. While the steering gear is produced at the company’s facility in Brattvåg, Norway.
The contract value to Rolls-Royce Commercial Marine is close to 300 MNOK. Delivery of the propulsion products are scheduled from 2019 and onwards to the completion of the last vessel in the series in 2021.