Performance of inland ships

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MoVeIt!: The EU research project MoVeIT! aimed at improving the performance of existing inland ships and was carried out in direct cooperation with shipping companies. Four ships were selected, equipped with fuel consumption meters and closely investigated, inside as well as outside. On basis of the results improvements were realized leading to less fuel consumption. Also in this project attention was paid to optimizing the loading depth for IWT on rivers.

SAVE: SAVE was the first joint industry project at the Netherlands and focused on improving the performance of existing ships without doing major investments. The ships were analyzed, discussed with experts and improvement measures were proposed. One of the interesting results was the development of a better rudder system leading to less resistance and better steering.

Clean ships: The need for cleaner transport is still growing. Not only are the requirements for cars and trucks getting higher, the same holds for inland ships. The aim of the project was to detect the possibilities to make inland ships cleaner and propose measures leading to this result. These measures comprise the main engines and auxiliary power but also the introduction of another attitude for navigation, leading to far less exhaust keeping the performance level up to the standard.

   

Top ships (setting up of the project, project is still ongoing at MARIN): Designs of inland ships are in most of the cases based on experience. Some of the designs are really good but the major part could be better. This is a pity, because better shaped ships are not more expensive to build and lead to a better exploitation because the fuel costs are less. The aim of Top Ships is to standardize the designs such that there is enough flexibility in the design but at the same time it leads to less fuel consumption.