The Need for Sufficiently Accurate Geometrical Representations of Ship Hull Forms for Digital Twins for Performance Prediction

Operational performance optimization is a key element to reduce both fuel consumption and emissions and meet current and upcoming legislation, e.g., the EEXI, the CII and the European ETS. While technical innovation and improvements are important, the careful use of fuel on board plays a vital role to meet these targets. Here route and speed optimization are decisive. The basis of any approach to operational optimization is a digital twin which allows predicting the behavior of the ship and its energy consuming systems in a reliable and suitably accurate way. Here geometry plays an important role. The German R&D project MariData (maridata.org) addresses (present) shortcomings of onboard energy management systems. One specific element highlighted in this paper focuses on the desired quality of geometric representations for digital twins when used as a basis for performance analysis and improved energy consumption during operation. The paper compares different approaches and necessary levels of modeling fidelity to indicate attainable accuracy, aiming at further elucidating how good hydrodynamics need to be represented.