Impact of Hull Fouling on Vessel’s Fuel Consumption and Emissions Based on a Simulation Model

With an ever-increasing trend of analysing and improving vessel energy and economic efficiency in recent years and decades, every aspect of a vessel’s system needs to be observed with the goal of reducing fuel consumption and emissions. Hull fouling can have a significant effect on these variables. Since hull maintenance is an expensive effort, its use must be optimized and fine-tuned to increase the economic efficiency of a vessel’s exploitation cycle. In order to do this, data and a subsequent analysis have to be obtained on different stages of the hull fouling process and the effect these states have on vessel energy efficiency and consequently emissions and economic efficiency. This paper will analyse a set of data including emission pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOX) and carbon dioxide (CO2) as a greenhouse gas and the effect that different amounts of hull fouling have on the vessel’s fuel consumption and emissions under different propulsion loads. The aforementioned data is obtained from a simulation model of a RoPax vessel. The advantage of using data from a simulation model of a RoPax vessel for the research discussed in this paper is the ability to analyse various conditions not easily reproduced on actual ships. Main research findings presented in this paper are consistent in proving that increased hull fouling leads to increased fuel consumption and emissions as high as 15% increase in extreme cases. Keywords: hull fouling, fuel consumption, pollutant, greenhouse gas, emissions, simulator