Fuel Savings Expected from New ISO Standard for Hulls, Propellers

The standards will determine the contribution of hull and propeller performance to fuel efficiency

A new standard for hull and propeller performance could help ship operators reduce their fuel costs and work more efficiently with coating suppliers, DNV GL says.

The proposed standard, ISO 19030, initiated by the Norwegian Bellona Foundation, uses a three-tiered approach that offers different levels of accuracy, with the lowest tier using noon reports while the highest is based on continuous monitoring.

Hull performance monitoring is difficult because of complicating factors influencing fuel consumption, including draft, trim, ship speed, seaway, and wind, all of which can change rapidly.

"In order to single out the influence of hull roughness, the contributions from all of the significant factors must be estimated, in order to convert data at different conditions to a common baseline," DNV GL wrote.

"All hull performance monitoring systems have a similar basic approach: raw data acquired on board are filtered and corrected for external influences... At present, the available approaches are difficult to compare."

The development of the standard was discussed at a meeting in Tokyo in November 2013 and will probably be the subject of several more meetings before it can go into force.

"This is a process that will take time and commitment from performance monitoring technology providers, classification societies, ship paint and propeller manufacturers as well as ship owners," said Svend Soeyland, Senior Adviser with the Bellona Foundation and convenor for the ISO 19030.

"We believe that this process alone may lead to improvements."

Marine coatings maker International Paint recently said that the development of an independent standard for hull performance would encourage the adoption of such products.