Norway's biggest ferry company has ordered two new ferries from Havyard Design & Solutions. They will be the first to benefit fully from Havyard LAB's new and unique three-step tool to become safer and more environmentally friendly. This could result in considerable savings, the company said in its release.
Havyard LAB is now a three-step tool that is unique in a commercial context. It is introduced to allow shipping companies to perfect ship designs step by step. This process will result in a ship that is carefully adapted to its work and the waters in which it will be operating, while also cutting energy consumption, emissions and operating costs. Executive Vice President Stig Magne Espeseth of Havyard Design & Solutions AS (HDS) refers to a recent example where they were considering different design options together with a customer.
Havyard Design & Solutions has extensive experience of zero-emission ferries after a record series of twelve electric ferry designs. ‘And the next two ferry designs will be perfected using the three-step tool in order to become even safer and more environmentally friendly.’
R&D Manager Kristian Steinsvik explains that during the first round of the three-step tool, you can experiment with hundreds of alternatives to clarify the basic size and framework conditions for the ship. In the next round, the best alternatives have been selected and the process continues with quality assurance and documentation of the variables of the designs that have made it into the ‘final round’. Finally, Havyard LAB is used to run a simulation of a digital twin of the ship in a virtual ocean.
Steinsvik says that the Havyard LAB has exact weather and wind, current and wave data for different ocean areas around the world that they use to create the most realistic virtual ocean possible depending on where the ship is intended to operate.
The three-step Havyard LAB tool gives shipowners an opportunity to test the hull, technology and operations before the ship has even been built. At the same time, Stig Magne Espeseth emphasises the interaction between customer, salesperson, designer and specialists on the new tool as a crucial factor in the development of sustainable designs.
Stig Magne Espeseth says that this tool will be useful when it comes to cutting costs and emissions for wellboats and specialist vessels for offshore wind parks as well as ships operating in the transport sector.