Ship&Offshore | Ausgabe 04/2017
Tools for investigating manoeuvring performance
Model tests All merchant ships longer than 100m must fulfil the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) standards for ship manoeuvrability. The best way to validate the criteria is to run model tests to avoid the risk of unpleasant surprises during full-scale sea trials. Model tests are usually performed late in the design process. If the requirements are not fulfilled at this time, inconvenient design changes may be needed at the very end of a project. This article by Martin Alexandersson and Sven Jacobsson, project managers at SSPA Sweden AB, a company providing maritime consultancy services, shows how SSPA’s “manoeuvring tools” can fit the design spiral for merchant ships and thus avoid costly last-minute changes. The tools have been identified by looking at numerous merchant newbuild projects run at SSPA during the past few years. They are defined and evaluated in terms of accuracy and cost.