Simcenter Amesim for marine: Steady as she goes
How Simcenter Amesim supports marine engineers to smoothly sail across engineering challenges
Introduction
Ahoy, ship enthusiasts! To be able to operate in today’s uncertain world, the marine industry is fully embracing digitalization and sustainability. With a desperate need for high-tech, clean and financially viable vessels, shipbuilding engineers feel the heat to develop smart and innovative solutions faster than ever.
For many years, Simcenter Amesim has been helping them navigate the complexities of high-tech integrations, eco-friendly pursuits, regulatory challenges, and budget constraints. It’s not just a tool; it’s a compass guiding engineers through the vast sea of possibilities, ensuring their ships set sail smoothly into the future.
So, let’s talk about how Simcenter Amesim evolved into a lifebuoy for marine engineers!
Dedicated solution for the marine industry
With its excellent modeling capabilities, documentation and libraries filled with ready-to-go components Simcenter Amesim is already in use for a long time in the marine industry. Mainly used for applications related to propulsion and ship hybridization, customers like Hyundai Heavy Industries, MAN Energy Solutions, Siemens Marine and Wärtsilä have been relying on Simcenter Amesim for 10+ years.
As of release 2019.1, Simcenter Amesim offers a dedicated marine solution to take system simulation for marine engineers to the next level. Starting with propeller and ship resistance models, engineers have been able to make the best decisions on propulsion configurations much earlier using and comparing their rapidly built ship propulsion architecture models for different mission profiles.
Tides are changing: Increased realism for wind, waves and water
To make better engineering judgments based on more realistic scenarios, since Simcenter Amesim 2020.1 a model for variable sea conditions is included. Being able to consider resistances from wind, waves and water properties it became possible to model ship operations for complete mission profiles for several days if needed. This feature also made it possible to leverage the propulsion model in Simcenter Amesim to bring immediate value to the vessel operations, by using the power simulation capabilities to answer the business-critical question: what is the best sea route and speed for minimizing my Fuel Oil Consumption?
In Simcenter Amesim 2020.2, it became possible to simulate even more realistic real-world scenarios with the added sea route planning feature further complemented with realistic weather conditions based on expertise from OSE Engineering in Simcenter Amesim 2022.1. Combining the digital twin of the vessel propulsion system, the variable sea conditions, weather and the sea routes, Simcenter Amesim makes it possible to optimize trip planning as well as possible and find the best balance between Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA), fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
With a tailwind towards a clean and bright future
To accelerate innovation for cleaner and more sustainable shipping, new features have been added to expand the capabilities to create cleaner and more innovative propulsion models. The marine industry is looking more and more into alternative fuels, energy storage and clean energy sources like wind, hydrogen and solar, so engineers need to be able to combine all of this to make the best propulsion for their vessels.
Simcenter Amesim offers the full range of required components in validated libraries to quickly build, parametrize and evaluate all different propulsion system architectures. Want to add a battery to store electric energy? You got it! Use solar power to generate electricity? Sure! Wind-assisted propulsion? Here you go! Should I use a fuel cell stack or hydrogen? Simulate it!
Conclusion
In an industry where money matters big time, rulebooks and regulations are leading and the need for eco-friendly shipping brings engineering headaches, there’s also a great opportunity to stand out. Simcenter Amesim can be easily connected to other Simcenter simulation and test solutions and even beyond. Why not connect the digital twin of your propulsion system to your fleet operation systems so you can use real-time weather data to guide your vessels as efficiently as possible? Why not evolve the digital twin of your propulsion system to an executable digital twin (xDT) embedded on your vessel to optimize performance during a mission? Simcenter Amesim models on their own bring you the valuable insights you need today, but they prove to be essential building blocks for the advanced applications of tomorrow.
“From the propulsion side, there are so many variables to consider when seeking to become more sustainable: fleet management and route optimization, new technology like wind-assisted, hybrid and electrified propulsion while keeping in mind the biggest variable of all – sea conditions.”
Petra Stoltenkamp – Product Performance Manager Wärtsilä
Try it now
Interested? Try out Simcenter Amesim in the performance engineering for Marine trial, and experience how system simulations can be combined with other Simcenter tools to optimize the complete performance of ships.
