Effect of Ship Propulsion Retrofit on Maneuverability Research Based on Co-simulation

Shipping has been dominating the transportation industry in worldwide trade. During the service life of a vessel, conversions in mid-life often occur for economic or technical purposes. By replacing expired components or updating the outdated technology to the latest operational standards, the service life could be greatly prolonged, and meanwhile the capability will be enhanced. Bringing ships-in-service to the latest technology creates the need for advanced methods and tools to simulate the ship main and auxiliary systems. Co-simulation is emerging as a promising technique in complex marine system modeling. The Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) standard enables sub-models representing part of the vessel to be executed individually or as an integrated part of the overall system. The modularity and re-usability of the sub-models speed up the simulation cycle and ensure time-cost effectiveness, which benefits the ship conversion. This paper presents a research related to the ship propulsion retrofit process based on the co-simulation technique. The ship maneuverability before and after refitting propulsion units is simulated and analyzed. Through the experiments, propulsion performance improvements are observed. Eventually, the study supports that the co-simulation technique to be applied in the maritime field has an encouraging future.