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Germanischer Lloyd has revealed that a new optimized hull design has led to a reduction in fuel consumption of more than 10 percent.

Shipowners Schulte Group (Germany) and Costamare Inc. (Greece) had requested a design review from Maric (The Marine Design & Research Institute of China) in a joint venture with Germanischer Lloyd's subsidiary FutureShip to optimize the efficiency of a 9,000 TEU container ship series.

The optimization procedure generated 15,000 different hull designs and evaluated them numerically. The evaluation was based on computational fluid dynamics, where the flow around the ship is simulated in the computer to determine the actually required propulsion power.

The most efficient design was compared to the base design in model tests, which were performed in December at the Hamburg Ship Model Basin (HSVA). The optimized model had a significantly lower total resistance than the base design.

For the real ship Germanischer Lloyd says this corresponds to substantial fuel and cost savings per day. As a result of the optimization, a smaller main engine can be installed than originally anticipated. The fuel consumption was reduced by more than 10 percent and CO2 emissions are cut by more than 90 tonnes per day.

According to Germanischer Lloyd, the optimization expenses are amortized within a few days of operation for the series of six ships.

FutureShip is specialized in developing and fine-tuning ship hull forms. The consulting and engineering company, a subsidiary of Germanischer Lloyd (GL), systematically models, varies and analyzes many hundreds or thousands of ship designs in an automated process based on a unique parametric approach.

Together with the shipowner's team, key objectives and constraints are identified. FutureShip sets up formal optimizations to explore the design space and to exploit promising options. Finally, FutureShip advises in choosing the best hull form and follows or carries out the associated tank testing. The company offers systematic and formal hydrodynamic optimization of hull, systematic and formal hydrodynamic optimization of appendages and surface and skin friction reduction.

The 9,000 TEU container ship series will be built in China and delivery of the first ship is scheduled for 2013.