Enabling Technology News

Chris Wiernicki, CEO, ABS, discusses the evolution of multi-physics simulation and its importance in reaching decarbonization goals through 2050.As the pace of technological evolution rapidly quickens, shipowners are increasingly forced to embrace change to ensure their fleets stay in compliance with new regulations and stave off obsolescence.Going forward, efficient, cost-effective delivery of goods from ‘point A to point B’ must be done in a more environmentally benign manner…

In the United States, it is a frustrating time to be in the government shipbuilding business. Even though America depends upon maritime commerce and faces growing security risks at sea, shipbuilding is just not a major national focus.Up to now, shipbuilders have had it pretty good. For the past several years, big naval shipbuilders have enjoyed steady growth and strong performance. In 2020, Huntington Ingalls Industries enjoyed record revenue of $9.4 billion, an 8.5% margin and gave a quarter billion back to shareholders in dividends and stock buybacks.

The airline industry has long employed flight data to monitor navigational and operational practices for evaluation and feedback to pilots using a system called Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA). Now a similar concept is coming into the shipping industry. Danelec Marine, a well-known manufacturer of VDRs and ECDIS products, this month unveiled a new Bridge Operational Quality Assurance (BOQA) system. To learn more, we talked with Hans Ottosen, CEO of Danelec, a Danish…

BP Shipping, the maritime arm of British headquartered global oil company BP, announced that  six new LNG vessels - British Partner, British Achiever, British Contributor, British Listener, British Mentor and British Sponsor - have joined the BP Shipping fleet.Each ship can carry a cargo of LNG equivalent in volume to 69 Olympic sized swimming pools and they deliver this low carbon energy to customers with 20% less CO2 emissions when compared to industry benchmarks.BP Shipping has more than 30 years’ experience operating LNG ships. When BP Shipping designed the vessels to support IST operations, they had to consider operational flexibility…

The classification society DNV GL has been selected to head up a Singapore-based research programme that will study the applications of additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing,  for the maritime sector.In a joint industry program (JIP) initiated by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), DNV GL will team up with ten member companies of the Singapore Ship Association (SSA) to examine how spare parts produced by 3D printers can help the capital-intensive industry to cut costs and downtimes.The goal of the JIP is to establish a list of commonly-ordered parts that are highly feasible for 3D printing with or without certification respectively not feasible for 3D printing.

Torqeedo  developed a specialized high-thrust electric propulsion system for VIKING’s revolutionary new LifeCraft survival craft, which are designed to speed safe evacuation of hundreds of passengers from ships at sea.The 203-passenger LifeCraft is a motorized inflatable vessel designed to deploy from a shipboard storage/launch station. Passengers board the boats through escape chutes. Once each boat is fully loaded, the crew maneuvers it to a safe standoff distance from the ship…

Danelec Marine’s new intelligent remote management platform is bringing the Internet of Things (IoT) to the maritime industry by providing easy, low-cost access to data from ships at sea. The second-generation DanelecConnect telematics platform is now fully available and the first ship installations are currently underway. The company is working with third-party software application providers to use the DanelecConnect application programming interface (API) tool to capture data from shipboard systems and sensors into their specialized software packages.

Kongsberg Maritime Inc., the North American division of Norway headquartered marine and offshore technology company Kongsberg Maritime, and Houston headquartered Stress Engineering Services (SES) have formed a strategic alliance to better serve existing and new clients with cost effective engineering services and fully integrated technical solutions within offshore drilling and floating production systems. By combining Stress Engineering Services’ wide-ranging engineering expertise…

Rear Admiral Paul Thomas develops and maintains policy, standards and program alignment for waterways management, navigation safety, boating, commercial vessels, ports and facilities, merchant mariner credentialing, vessel documentation, marine casualty investigation, inspection and port state control activities. He serves as the Assistant Commandant for Prevention Policy overseeing three Coast Guard directorates: Inspections and Compliance, Marine Transportation Systems, and Commercial Regulations and Standards. A specialist in Marine Safety, Security and Environmental Protection, he has served at the Marine Safety Center in Washington, DC and many others before that. His other tours include, among others, service as Commanding Officer of USCGC CAPE ROMAIN.

It is the newest and most transformational warship ever built, and yet it has also had the longest gestation period. Whether you call it new or old, you have to call it different. The pedigree for DDG 1000 is not from the Spruance or Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyers, but rather it comes from the SC-21 (Surface Combatant for the 21st century) concept from 1994. Like DDG 1000, SC-21 was not about anti-air warfare. It was all about strike. SC-21, along with the Maritime Fire Support Demonstrator (MFSD) “arsenal ship” concept…

It is the newest and most transformational warship ever built, and yet it has also had the longest gestation period. Whether you call it new or old, you have to call it different. The pedigree for DDG 1000 is not from the Spruance or Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyers, but rather it comes from the SC-21 (Surface Combatant for the 21st century) concept from 1994. Like DDG 1000, SC-21 was not about anti-air warfare. It was all about strike. SC-21, along with the Maritime Fire Support Demonstrator (MFSD) “arsenal ship” concept…

System is designed to universally interface with a vessel’s existing navigation equipment and autonomously deliver water depths seen by the vessel to a central server. Almost four years and 100 million soundings later, the concept is a reality. Almost two years after we first reported (December 2011 edition of MarineNews) on an innovative, depth sounding recorder device that made wide swaths of data available to perhaps anyone who wants it, the concept envisioned by ARGUS has developed into a viable tool that could change the way that government agencies schedule surveys and dredging. Today, about 40 boats have voluntarily placed on board their vessels the ARGUS (Autonomous Remote Global Underwater Surveillance) system transmitters.

DSM, producer of ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMwPE), branded as Dyneema, and OTS (Offshore & Trawl Supply AS), a Norwegian manufacturer of synthetic fiber ropes of extreme strength, are proud to congratulate Titan Salvage and Micoperi for their outstanding achievement in the Parbuckling project. Dextron 12 Plus ropes made with Dyneema  fiber took the strain of the Costa Concordia, holding it in position and relieving some of the tension felt by the engineers from Titan Salvage and Micoperi during this historic marine exercise.

KVH Industries, Inc. announced that it has acquired Headland Media Ltd., a media and entertainment services company. Headland Media is a provider of commercially licensed news, sports, movies and music content that they sell in the maritime, hotel and retail markets. "The acquisition of Headland Media supports our strategic vision of extending our maritime broadband service to also include delivering premium content to vessels," said Martin Kits van Heyningen, KVH's chief executive officer. "We've captured a leading market share in the maritime VSAT market for one-to-one connectivity, and are now rolling out a new, highly efficient,…

Ships and offshore units are specialist structures with high requirements for efficiency and availability throughout their entire life cycle. Many of the processes, from draft via production all the way to operation, can be supported by 3D models and computer graphics. How can the actual dimensions of a compartment be measured efficiently in case of retrofit e.g. for ballast water treatment or ILO MLC? How can the location of a structural crack be reported to onshore colleagues? How can the design of a vessel be communicated for review by owner or class?

The first pressure-tolerant ROV successfully tested in the deep Atlantic. In early May 2012, a new pressure-tolerant ROV named Erno2, designed by Enitech GmbH (Rostock, Germany), was successfully tested within the framework of the “Pressure-tolerant deep-sea systems” project of Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi). Driven by electric thrusters, the light vehicle easily manoeuvred above the seabed, streaming live video from over 4000 m deep with its 3 video cameras and LED lights. The actual robot was attached to its tether management system (TMS) during the two-hour descent into the deep. It left the TMS 20 m above the seafloor and continued its journey being remotely controlled.

Paradigm Drilling Services has had a strong start to 2012, securing over £1 million of new contracts in the UK and overseas. The Aberdeenshire-based firm has signed a five-year lease on a 3,000 square-foot building adjacent to its headquarters on Thainstone Business Park, including workshop and office space to expand its research and development facilities with new drilling technology to be launched later this year. A recruitment drive is underway. More than 30 people are now in place…

Participants at a workshop exploring the use of titanium structure for ships found that it is not only possible to construct a ship hull from titanium—or Ti, it could be cost effective. The workshop was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and hosted by the University of New Orleans, where an ONR research program on titanium ship structures is being conducted. Representatives of the shipbuilding industry, titanium suppliers, Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force labs, and academia discussed and examined materials, processes and applications. Most ships today are primarily made from steel.

International classification society Bureau Veritas has issued guidelines for the Classification and Certification of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines. The guidelines specify the environmental conditions under which floating offshore wind turbines may serve, the principles of structural design, load cases for the platform and mooring system, stability and the structural division and design criteria for the top structure. The Guidance Note NI 572 covers floating platforms supporting single- or multiple-turbines with horizontal or vertical axes. Maxime Pachot, Offshore Wind Turbine Manager, Bureau Veritas, said, "There is growing demand for offshore wind turbines which can be safely installed in very deep water locations.

Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Commander Rear Adm. Mike Mathis and Technical Director Mary Lacey announced the selection and pending appointment to the senior executive service of Donald Collins as Executive Director of Naval Ship Systems Engineering Station (NAVSSES) in Philadelphia and Deputy Executive Director, NSWC Carderock, Md. The NAVSSES executive director develops overall policy and directs strategic and tactical planning. A native of Philadelphia, Collins earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Auburn University in 1967 and did graduate work at Drexel University, beginning his career in Philadelphia as an electronics engineer in the Measurement Technologies Department in 1974.

At the MAN Diesel works in Augsburg, Germany, the first production version of the 32/44CR recently completed its Type Approval program in the presence of representatives from the shipyard, the ship owner and the Classification Societies American Bureau of Shipping, Bureau Veritas, Det Norske Veritas, Germanischer Lloyd, Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, China Classification Society and Registro Italiano Navale. As a result of the approval, the engine is now certified for use as both a propulsion engine and to drive shipboard generator sets.

Samson, specializing in performance cordage, held a ribbon cutting ceremony on February 10, 2009, to celebrate its recent business expansion that will enable the production of a broad range of products for the offshore oil and gas industry. The multi-million dollar expansion includes the addition of new technical engineering staff and sales staff, as well as adding more than 35,000 sq ft to Samson’s Lafayette, La., synthetic-rope manufacturing plant. The new space accommodates new braiding and take-up equipment specifically tailored to produce very long, large-diameter synthetic ropes. The expansion adds enough floor space to accommodate two new rope braiders and support equipment: a Herzog 48-strand horizontal braider…

CIMAC, the International Council for Combustion Engines took advantage of this year’ s major trade show in the large engine sector to stage the latest in its CIMAC Circle series of forums for information exchange. Chaired by CIMAC board member Yasuhiro Itoh, Managing Director, Niigata Power Systems Co., Ltd., the Circle was entitled “Life-Cycle Costs - the Impact of Fuel and Emissions,” and with contributions from a full spectrum of stakeholders gave a timely and comprehensive snapshot of present and predicted costs of engine ownership in the light of tightening marine emissions legislation. Especially significant, the CIMAC Circle took place for the third time in China.