Ocean Engineering 89 (2014) 189–199

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Ocean Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng

Ship synthesis model for the preliminary design of a fleet

of compressed natural gas carriers
Giuliano Vernengo a,n, Enrico Rizzuto b
a
University of Genoa, Department of Naval and Marine Engineering (DITEN), Italy
b
University of Genoa, Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering (DICCA), Italy

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The transportation by sea of compressed natural gas is a very recent subject, prompted by recent
Received 28 August 2013 changes in the perspectives of a possible economic exploitation of relatively small quantities of this
Accepted 11 August 2014 hydrocarbon, available as by-product of oil extraction in off-shore fields. An automatic and integrated
preliminary design procedure has been established to generate and evaluate feasible technical solutions
Keywords: for a trade of this kind. A first trial application has been carried out for a specific case, for which various
Ship synthesis model feasible solutions corresponding to fleets composed of a different number of equal ships are generated.
Compressed natural gas In the procedure, a parent hull shape is adopted in order to evaluate, through systematic variations of
Preliminary design the main dimensions, all the elements necessary to perform the classical steps of the design spiral (like
Integrated design
weight evaluation, buoyancy, trim and stability checks and motion resistance prediction) accounting for
Added resistance
the mutual interaction between the various items. When possible and necessary, parts of the procedure
have been calibrated with data from existing ships, in order to ensure realism in the predictions. This has
been done with reference e.g. to the evaluation of weight items and in particular to hull weight. On the
other hand, when setting boundaries to the range of variation in the ship dimensions, care has been
given not to constrain the investigation domain only to existing dimensional ratios, but to let the
procedure explore a wider range of solutions. A particular feature of the procedure is to include in the
evaluation process the seakeeping performances in terms of added resistance in waves. This aspect
interacts with the other part of the design process and influences the final outcome in terms of
performance of the solution. The main implications of accounting for the increase in motion resistance
are the capability of evaluating the reduction in the average speed, the corresponding reduction in the
annual cargo delivery and the increase in fuel consumption (all aspects evaluated in respect to nominal
conditions). The procedure, accordingly, is able to provide, in addition to several technical output
identifying the various solutions (such as main dimensions, weight, power installed, seakeeping
performances), indicators of the performances of the fleet in terms of annual cargo delivery, CapEx
and OpEx, that can be used to rank the various solutions.
& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction from off-shore fields to the market, including pipelines, liquefied

In the continuous exploitation of new and diversified sources of
energy, a reconsideration of the role of natural gas has occurred
recently. Europe has been identified among world greatest gas import
markets as a rapidly growing one (Economides and Wood, 2009).
Recently interest on natural gas has grown up, even if a great portion
of world reserves are stranded, i.e. fields without an actual market due
to their geographical location. Very often natural gas represents a by-
product of oil fields. A variety of ways exist to transport natural gas
n
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: giuliano.vernengo@unige.it (G. Vernengo).
natural gas (LNG), natural gas hydrate (NGH) or compressed natural
gas (CNG, see Bortnowska, 2009). Each engineering solution, being
different from the other ones for complexity, working pressures and
temperatures, gas states and gas containment system, is designed for a
specific market sector. In particular, CNG transported by sea is
practicable for stranded fields or for oil fields that produce as by-
product a small amount of gas which cannot be re-injected or flared.
Another possible application is in the early stage of an LNG trade, as a
preliminary start-up (Thomas and Dawe, 2003).
Good compression ratios of the gas, aimed at increasing the
energy stored per unit volume, are typically achieved with pressure
of 230–250 bars. Cylindrical gas containment systems have been
extensively studied both with static and fatigue failure analysis (see

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2014.08.012
0029-8018/& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
190 G. Vernengo, E. Rizzuto / Ocean Engineering 89 (2014) 189–199

Valsgård et al., 2004, 2010). In addition to the issues of the pressure

Input Data
vessels, others key arguments of the complex definition of a fleet
of ships devoted to such a specific trade are those dealing both
with market location (Khalilpour and Karimi, 2011) and with
Free Design Variables
logistic operations of the fleet (Nikolaou, 2010), which sum to those
linked with the structural and hydrodynamic behavior of the ship

Ship Generation and Check

itself (Malta et al., 2011). Ship Main Dimension Definition
From the point of view of naval architecture, a ship synthesis
model (SSM) approach has been used (Kara, 2010), (Papanikolaou,
Ship weight and weight breakdown

Weight Correction
2010), (Harries et al., 2011): fleets of engineering-feasible ships are
designed through an automatic procedure able to integrate pre-
liminary naval architecture analysis and simple but representative Hydrodynamic predictions
logistic concerns and to account for their mutual effects in the (calm water & added resistance)
overall costs evaluation. Whenever it has been possible, data from
existing similar ships have been used to check and/or integrate the
Trim, Stability and others checks
predictions of the proposed model.

Yes
2. Integrated design strategy Others Free Variable Combinations?
No
The design of a cargo ship, even at a preliminary stage, requires

Design Rank
elaboration of a great amount of data, most of which are strongly Measure of Merit (CapEx & OpEx)
interdependent, as, for example, the case of hull weight and
resistance. This implies that it is not possible to analyze and solve
Ranking
each problem separately (e.g. weight computation, calm water
resistance prediction, seakeeping performance analysis and
others) without establishing a time consuming iterative process.
Best Fleet Design
Accordingly, an automatic design method is highly beneficial to
explore easily a great number of different design combinations, Fig. 1. Flowchart of the integrated design process.
checking always the feasibility (i.e. maintaining the internal
coherence of the design) and fulfilling the trade requirements. In
the present case, the task has been accomplished integrating the
aspect peculiar to the specific CNG trade into a broad band ship
design method. Starting from a few input information on the
loading and the unloading terminals, on the number of ships of
the fleet and on the marine environment, fleets of feasible ships
are generated by a systematic variation of selected free design
parameters. Each solution is evaluated both from a technical and
an economic point of view and at the end of the process all the
feasible fleets are ranked, on the basis of the selected Measure of
Merit, for optimization purposes. The design procedure is sche-
matically shown in Fig. 1.

2.1. Geometrical characteristics of the ships

As a first step, the main dimensions of the current ship solution

are found. Since the essential requirement is the annual nominal
cargo capacity for the fleet, hull length, beam and height are
computed following the dimensions of the zone dedicated to the
cargo storage. The general arrangement of the cargo area is shown
in Fig. 2: the transported gas is stored into equal cylindrical
pressure vessels (PVs) with spherical ends, arranged with the axis
in a vertical direction. The diameter, dPV, of the transversal section
of the vessels is considered in this context as a design (fixed)
datum. Accordingly, once the maximum number of pressure
vessels in the longitudinal direction (number of rows), Nx, is
selected, the length of the cargo zone is computed by means of
the following formula:
LCargo ¼ N x ðdPV þ t x Þ
where tx is the extra space in longitudinal direction needed to
house the pressure vessels support skirts and piping. Similarly, the
beam of this zone, BCargo , is computed from the maximum number
of pressure vessels in the transversal direction, Ny . Nx and N y are
‘free variables’, in the sense that they identify, together with the
other free variables, a specific solution in the space of all the
Fig. 2. Ship cargo general arrangement.
possible solutions. By varying the values of the free variables, the
space is explored. The ship length is divided into five parts:
extreme aft; engine room; cargo zone; zone devoted to house
the Submerged Turret Loading (STL), if present, and fore end. The
STL is a device often present in similar types of ships, devoted to
moor the ship in the proximity of an open water loading/unload-
ð1Þ
ing terminal. The presence/absence of this device is considered a
design datum to be provided in input to the procedure. If present,
the STL implies a dedicated portion of the ship length of about
12 m and an extra weight of 500 t. As initial guess, once the length
of the cargo zone is computed, the length of the other zones is set
in proportion to the former one. Checks are carried out a later
stage of the procedure.
 G. Vernengo, E. Rizzuto / Ocean Engineering 89 (2014) 189–199 191

The beam of the ship is directly computed from the beam of the
cargo holds accounting for the double side hull; hence:
BShip ¼ N Y ðdPV þ t Y Þ þ 2BDS
where t y is the extra space due to pressure vessels support skirt
and piping in transversal direction and BDS is the breath of the
double side, which is calculated accordingly with the following
requirement (see e.g. RINa, 2005):
BDS ¼ min ½Bship =15; 3 m BDS ≥1 m
The total number of pressure vessels stored inside the ship, nPV , is
found as:
nPV ¼ C f ill N x Ny
where C f ill is a ‘filling coefficient’, pre-determined by means of an
offline analysis: for a few geometrical affine variations of the
model hulls, pressure vessels have been placed on the inner
bottom plane surface and their total number have been recorded;
the filling coefficient is then defined in order to correlate the total
number of vessels that are stored in the ship with their maximum
longitudinal and transversal number. In Fig. 3, the trend of such
coefficient vs N x and N y is shown. As it can be noted, for a given
length, larger ships ensure a higher filling coefficient due to a
better use of the inner space. For reasons of standardization in the
construction, the height of the pressure vessels, hPV , is the same
for all the PVs within a single ship. Such height is calculated from
the nominal gas capacity of a ship of the fleet, Q Ship . The latter
quantity is in turn the outcome of a previous logistic analysis
which accounts for the number of ships of the fleet, for the
nominal velocity, for the annual amount of cargo to be transported
and for the length of the route (see Giribone et al., 2013).
Checks on both the maximum and minimum height of the
pressure vessels are performed, too. The upper limit is based on a
limitation of the maximum volume of gas carried in a transversal
row: this requirement is enforced for safety reasons (if a problem
of leaking arise, a row can be isolated from the plant, but the gas
capacity of the row should not exceed the quantity that can be
quickly discharged into air with acceptable risk). Such volume was
in the present analysis set to 93,000 m3, based on a preliminary
evaluation of the evacuation plant.
The lower limit in the pressure vessels height is due to
geometrical limitations in the shape of the vessels themselves:
solutions with pressure vessels lower in height than a diameter
and a half (3 m, in the present analysis) are discarded (note that a
height of one diameter would correspond to a spherical container).
Defining hDB the height of the double bottom and Δh a
tolerance due to the presence of piping, the evaluated height of
1.00
the ship becomes:
D ¼ hDB þhPV s þ Δh ð5Þ
ð2Þ where Δh was set equal to 0:16hPV s and hDB is defined according to
standard requirements (see e.g.: IACS, 2012):
hDB ¼ maxðminðBShip =15; 2 mÞ; 1 mÞ ð6Þ
The minimum height of the ship is also checked by a statistical
regression based on the ship length [see paragraph 2.4.4 below], in
ð3Þ order to avoid unrealistically low ships in comparison to length
(which might be exposed e.g. to longitudinal strength problems).
In case of failure of one of these checks, the current solution,
which corresponds to a particular combination of input para-
meters, is discarded.
ð4Þ At this stage of the process, the main dimensions of each ship
of the fleet are defined, as well as its nominal gas capacity, the
number of pressure vessels and their height.
2.2. Weight computation
The weight computation is the next step of the preliminary
evaluation of the fleet of ships. Weight and barycenter position
(longitudinal and vertical) are derived in order to obtain a
draught computation and proceed to the prediction of the other
performances.
2.2.1. Hull steel
The estimation of the weight of the hull, i.e. the weight of steel
plates and stiffeners, has been carried out using the area of various
parts of the hull surface of the model hull. Three zones have been
defined in height (bottom, side and deck) and four zones along the
length (aft, engine room, cargo and forward part); in addition, the
area of the double bottom and of the double sides have been
considered. For all geometrical variations of the ship dimensions,
the extension of such areas have been recorded together with the
positions of their geometrical centers. Weight coefficients for unit
area have been determined for a number (17) of existing ships,
whose data have been made available from an anonymous con-
fidential source. These ships show structural characteristics con-
sistent with those under study, but do not transport liquid cargo in
pressure vessels. Dimensions are reported in Table 1 without
further details.
Each of these real ships have been divided into the same parts
above considered and an average value of the ratio between steel
weight and surface has been calculated from drawings and other
Table 1
Global dimensions of the set of existing ships.
LBP B D
(m) (m) (m)

0.95 63 13 7
81 14 7
Filling Coefficient

0.90 104 18 9
110 18 9
0.85 Ny = 2 137 17 7
Ny = 5 140 22 13
0.80 144 26 12
Ny = 7
156 35 25
Ny = 9 168 40 21
0.75 Ny = 12 174 32 19
176 32 18
0.70
184 32 17
219 32 20
0.65 219 32 21
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
237 42 21
Nx 239 44 21
264 48 23
Fig. 3. Filling coefficient for model hull affine variations.
192 G. Vernengo, E. Rizzuto / Ocean Engineering 89 (2014) 189–199

Bottom uniform reinforcements distribution, the position of the barycenter

0.50 of the hull may be approximated with the geometrical center of the
0.45 surface.
Weight Coeff. [t/m2]

0.40 The results in terms of lightship weight (LSW) obtained by

applying the mentioned procedure based on surfaces analysis to
0.35
AFT. the ships available for the calibration are presented in Figs. 7–9,
0.30
E.R. where the prediction is plotted vs. the actual values related to the
0.25 sample of existing ships. The small dispersions around the bisector
CARGO
0.20
FORW
lines indicate a good correlation between the two sets of values
0.15 and confirm the applicability of the approach.
0.10
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Ship length [m]
Fig. 4. Weight coefficient for the bottom of the ship. 30000

25000
Side

LSW (Predicted) [t]

0.50 20000
0.45
Weight Coeff. [t/m2]

15000
0.40
0.35 10000
0.30 AFT.
E.R. 5000
0.25
CARGO
0.20 0
FORW 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000
0.15
LSW (Existing ships) [t]
0.10
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Fig. 7. Light Ship Weight—predicted vs. real.

Ship length [m]

Fig. 5. Weight coefficient for the side of the ship. 140

120
Deck
XCOG(Predicted) [m]

0.50 100

0.45 80
Weight Coeff. [t/m2]

0.40
60
0.35
AFT. 40
0.30
E.R.
0.25 20
CARGO
0.20 FORW 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
0.15
XCOG(Existing ships) [m]
0.10
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Fig. 8. Longitudinal position XCOG of the center of gravity—predicted vs. real.

Ship length [m]

Fig. 6. Weight coefficient for the deck of the ship. 16

14
design documents. The trend of these weight per unit area coefficients
VCOG (Predicted) [m]

12
are shown in Figs. 4–6 vs the ship length: each plot corresponds to one
of the three vertical ship parts, while each curve in the figures refers to 10
a specific longitudinal zone. The ship length ranges from 50 m to more 8
than 300 m. As expected, the weight coefficients, at constant ship
length, are higher for the bottom zone and decrease for zones at a 6

higher location and, for the same vertical zone, they increase with ship 4
length (larger scantlings). Said C Eqi the equivalent weight coefficient of
2
the ith hull zone and Ai its area extent, the weight of the ship steel is
then computed by means of the following summation: 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
n1Zones
W Hull  Steel ¼ ∑ C Eqi Ai ð7Þ VCOG (Existing ships) [m]
i¼1
Fig. 9. Vertical position VCOG of the center of gravity from baseline—predicted
Under the simplifying hypothesis of homogeneous material and vs. real.
 G. Vernengo, E. Rizzuto / Ocean Engineering 89 (2014) 189–199
2.2.2. Weight of cargo and pressure vessels
The weight of the transported gas is directly computed from the
net gas capacity of each ship of the fleet under consideration. Such
capacity comes from logistic considerations involving the distance to
be covered in the round trip, the nominal velocity of the ship and the
annual gas production of the offshore field. The number of available
cruising days over a year, T Cruise , is computed as:
T Cruise ¼ 365  T Load  T Of f Load  T Down  T In=Out
where T Load and T Of f Load are the days required for loading and
offloading operation respectively, T Down is the annual downtime due
to maintenance and T In=Out represents the time spent to approach the
service docks, which depend on the harbors characteristics. The days
needed for each ship to travel a single round trip, T RT , are computed
by dividing the distance to be covered during a round trip, dRT , by the
nominal speed of each ship, V s . Hence, the number of trips traveled by
each ship over a year, ntrips , can be found as the ratio between T Cruise
and T RT . Once the gas capacity due to each ship over a year, Q ShipYear , is
computed, dividing the yearly gas field production, Q YFP , by the
number of ships, ns , the nominal net gas capacity for each ship of a
fleet, Q ShipNet , is calculated as:
Q ShipNet ¼ Q ShipYear =ntrips
The nominal net gas capacity of each ship is computed including an
extra volume, corresponding to the portion of gas which remains
inside the pressure vessels after the unloading operations (this
amount, therefore, is always present on board but not actually
delivered).
One of the major contributions to the total displacement of the
ship is represented by the steel pressure vessels. The thickness of the
PVs is computed by means of classical formulations (ASME, 2010), as
a function of the design pressure of the vessel, of the geometrical
characteristics and the permissible stress for the material (ASTM/
ASME A/SA 533 Type C steel is used). The volume of the walls of the
pressure vessels and, accordingly, their weight is easily determined. A
support skirt realized in steel has been considered, too, in the weight
for each pressure vessel. In addition, two further weight items linked
to PVs are considered: the transversal piping connecting the PVs of
each row and the longitudinal main piping, which connects all the
transversal rows. The first item represents an extra weight for each
PV, in a range of 1–2.5% of the single PV weight itself, depending on
the number of pressure vessels on a row; the second is an extra
weight for each row, equal about to 0.5% to 2% of the total weight of
PVs in a ship, based on the number of pressure vessels along the
length of the hull. In the present analysis, the weight of a single PV
ranges from 50 t to 120 t, depending on the height (values adopted
from about 10–25 m).
2.2.3. Outfitting, superstructures and bulkheads weights
The weight of the hull outfitting, except those related to the
pressure vessels, is computed in function of beam and length of
the portion of the ship under investigation. Named these local
beam and length BZone and LZone respectively, the following
equation was applied:
W Outf itting ¼ C Zone BZone LZone
CZone is a scalar coefficient, in ½tons=m2 , whose value depends on
the location of the zone considered (aft, cargo and fore zone).
The weight of the superstructures is estimated via another
simplified formula, based on the beam of the ship (see Eq. 11);
C Superstructure is again a scalar coefficient, in ½tons=m2 . The vertical
position of the center of gravity of this weight item is set
accounting for the number of levels in the superstructure and
the inter-deck height.
W Superstructures ¼ C Superstructure BShip 2
193
The above formulation comes from regressions obtained on a set
of ships for which information were available. Uncertainties do
affect the prediction, but, considering the pressure vessels as a
separate item (hence excluding their weight from the light ship),
the weight of the outfitting results to be about 4–6% of the light
ship weight, while the superstructures weight is bounded in the
range 5% to 10% of the light ship. As mentioned, the weight of the
steel pressure vessels is the major part of the overall weight: on
ð8Þ
average, it results to be 120–150% of the light ship, depending on
the combination of the free design parameters. Approximations on
the estimations of outfitting and superstructure weights, there-
fore, result to affect the total weight of the ship to a very small
extent.
Once the maximum number of PVs which can be longitudinally
placed inside a single compartment is determined, the number of
transversal bulkheads is found. The weight of transversal bulk-
heads W Bulkheads , comes from an analysis conducted on a set of the
previously mentioned existing ships; it has been correlated with
the dimensions of the ships via the product of the design height, D,
by the beam of the ship, BShip , as shown in Fig. 10.
ð9Þ 2.3. Hydrodynamic predictions and power computation
The calm water resistance of each considered solution is
predicted by means of the Holtrop–Mennen statistical method
(Holtrop and Mennen, 1982) which is widely used in the pre-
liminary design stage of ships. Although this method does not
require a large computational time, considering that many fleet of
ships need to be evaluated in the process, this computations have
been performed off-line on several affine variation of the model
hull and results have been stored into a database structure. The
database is loaded once for all at the beginning of the process and
interpolations are used to find the actual value of calm water
resistance for each current case.
Calm water propulsion power is used for the selection of the
power installed, in turn used to check the preliminary values of
the weight of both the main engine and of the inherent outfitting,
by use of suitable statistical regressions.
The calm water propulsion power is increased by a sea margin
percentage (see Parsons, 2003), Ms, (equal to 20% in the present
study), which is to be regarded as a design parameter since it
affects the performances of the examined solution, governing the
performances in rough sea, but influencing also weight and
consumption items. Hence the installed power becomes:
P install ¼ P calm ð1 þMsÞ ð12Þ
Indeed, a key issue for the comparison of the different solutions
for a specific trade is represented by the behavior in the actual sea
conditions characteristic of the trade area, which are statistically
represented by specific scatter diagrams. The average speed that
the ship is actually able to keep is evaluated by long term predictions
0.16
0.15
ð10Þ
W/(B*D) [t/m2]
0.14
0.13
0.12
0.11
0.10
0 200 400 600 800 1000
B*D [m2]
ð11Þ Fig. 10. Function used for the computation of the bulkheads weight.
194 G. Vernengo, E. Rizzuto / Ocean Engineering 89 (2014) 189–199
based on such scatter diagrams. The basis of this evaluation is
represented by the computation of the added resistance in waves,
which has been investigated in the frequency domain by means of a
strip theory based method (Bertram et al., 2006) for each selected
wave length (in the typical range of sea waves, from very short to
very long waves). A sort of response amplitude operator (pseudo-
RAO, the term referring to the fact that response is quadratic with
wave amplitude) for the added resistance has been obtained for each
solution over the set of wave frequencies (Gironi et al., 2012). Hence,
for a given hull geometry, an average added resistance is quantified
for each short term period, identified by a single combination of
significant wave and average wave period for the sea state and by a
ship speed. The spectral method is applied to evaluate this short term
added resistance experienced by a given hull shape advancing in bow
waves. Accounting for a Bretschneider sea spectra, SW, for each of
the different values of the average wave period, TM, and for unit
significant wave height, H1/3, the added resistance response spectra,
SRAdd, is obtained by the following equation:
SRAdd ðL; B; T; V ship ; T m ; H 1=3 ; ωÞ ¼ SW ðT m ; H 1=3 ; ωÞ USAdd ðL; B; T; V ship ; ωÞ
where the ship added resistance pseudo-RAO, SAdd is function of the
frequency and the parameters which identify the ship dimensions
and its operating conditions (the ship nominal speed). The value of
the added resistance of the candidate hull is then computed by
integration in the frequency domain, first for sea states of unit
significant wave height:
Z Accordingly, the main dimension ratios found so far for the trial
1
R0Add ðL; B; T; V ship ; T m ; H1=3 ¼ 1; ωÞ ¼ SRAdd ðL; B; T; V ship ; T m ; H 1=3 ¼ 1; ωÞdω
0
then for all the significant wave height values:
RAdd ðL; B; T; V ship ; T m ; H1=3 ¼ 1; ωÞ ¼ RAdd' ðL; B; T; V ship ; T m ; H 1=3 ¼ 1; ωÞðH1=3 Þ2
Depending on the value of the computed added resistance two
scenarios are possible. When the required power exceeds the
available one, the delivered power is considered as correspondent
to the installed power (100% of the Maximum Continuous Rating:
MCR of the engine) and a decrease in the speed is hypothesized on
the basis of a quadratic relationship between resistance and speed.
8 suitable also for the actual kind of ships) has been accounted for:
< P required_tot ¼ ðRcalm ð1 þ MsÞÞV ship
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð16Þ
: V~ ship ¼ RRcalm ð1þþRMsÞV ship
calm Add
On the contrary, if the total required power is less than the installed
power, the nominal speed is maintained and the total computed
propulsive power is taken into account for the consumption evalua-
tion:
( 2.4.4. Minimum ship depth
P required_tot ¼ ðRcalm þ RAdd Þ U V ship
ð17Þ
V~ ship¼V ship
The above speeds and corresponding consumptions (each one
obtained for a specific sea state) are unconditioned by the probability
of occurrence of the sea states coming from the scatter diagram. The
annual average fuel consumption (which account for the increased
wave resistance), the annual average ship speed (decreased in
respect to the nominal value for the same reason) and the inherent
average annual quantity of delivered cargo (decreased with respect
to its nominal value due to the reduction in speed) represent results
of this computation.
2.4. Trim, intact stability and geometrical checks
Once the ships of the fleet have been designed, simple checks
on trim, intact stability and geometric ratios are performed.
2.4.1. Trim
An even keel longitudinal condition for the ship is required; in
case of failure of such requirement, the trim is corrected by means
of iteratively loaded weights on the baseline of the ship, in way of
the aft or forward perpendicular (depending on the sign of the
trim). This type of trim correction is quite coarse, but the alter-
native strategy of a modification in the hull form implies a degree
of detail in the model that is beyond the scope of the present
study, whose aim is to evaluate the influence of the main
dimensions on a series of parent ships.
2.4.2. Stability
In order to ensure a minimum intact stability for the ship, if the
metacentric height, GM T , results to be too less than a predeter-
mined value (in the present case:3 m)a new correction weight is
loaded on the base line of the ship, in a longitudinal position
which corresponds to the center of gravity (in order not to modify
further the trim).
After both checks, due to the possible increases in weight
ð13Þ generated by the corrections, the hydrodynamic performances are
computed once again.
2.4.3. Dimensional ratios
Since realistic ship designs are to be provided at the end of the
process, a few constraints dealing with characteristic geometric
ratios of the ship have been imposed.
ð14Þ design under consideration are checked against predefined limit
values; in Table 2 limits on B=D, B=T, L=B are listed: because of the
aim of exploring also unconventional ships, these boundaries are
intentionally wider than those for typical existing ships. The
ð15Þ computational time devoted to the analysis of one solution is of
the order of a few seconds so enlarging the boundaries of the
analysis has not dramatic consequences on the CPU time. On the
other hand, setting these boundaries eliminates from the analysis
the most unrealistic cases, saving anyway computational time. In
order to check the feasibility of the selected ranges for these ratios,
a set of existing bulk carriers (which ratios have been considered
the values of the B=T and the L=B ratios of the ships of the sample,
together with the corresponding limit lines, are shown in Fig. 11
and in Fig. 12 respectively. In the same figures, the limiting values
chosen for the analysis are also indicated by means of a black
dashed line. As it can be noted, all the ships of the sample are
comprised in the center of the selected field of investigation.
The following formula defines the minimum value for the
height of the ship D:
Dmin ¼ 0:09LShip  2:6 ð18Þ
Once again, the formulation of Eq. (18) is derived by the analysis of
an available set of existing ships (see Fig. 13). As it can be seen, in
this case a conservative approach has been followed, imposing a
minimum value for the D/L ratio that not all the existing ships
satisfy. This is due to the fact that low values of D/L may imply
Table 2
Limits on main dimension ratios.
Lower limit Upper limit
B/D – 1.5
B/T 2 5
L/B 2.5 10
 G. Vernengo, E. Rizzuto / Ocean Engineering 89 (2014) 189–199 195

21 2.4.6. Freeboard
The difference between ship depth and draught is shown in
18 Fig. 14 for the same sample of existing ships: the poly-curve shown
in the figure is used as minimum allowed freeboard with respect
15
to the length of the ship; note that for ship length less than 100 m,
Draught [m]

12 freeboard takes almost constant value (green line), while for ship
B/T=5
lengths equal or greater than 108 m the freeboard is taken from
9 B/T=2 the “Table A” of the International Convention on Load Lines of
Actual Limit 1966, which is valid for tankers (red line); for ship lengths
6 Ship sample between 100 m and 108 m a linear interpolation has been adopted
(blue line). In conclusion, the minimum allowable freeboard is set
3
according to eq.19:
8
0 > L o 100 m
< 0:4
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 FBmin ¼ 0:105L  10:1 100 m o L o 108 m ð19Þ
>
:  2e  8 L3  2e  5 L2 þ 0:0283L  1:3456
Beam [m] L Z 108 m

Fig. 11. B/T boundaries.

2.4.7. Roll period

The last check deals with the roll period of the ship; an
80
evaluation of the roll period Troll for all ships is performed
70 according to the approximate formulation of Eq. (20), where the
radius of gyration K is derived as K ¼ 0:35Bship .
60
2πK
50 T Roll ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð20Þ
Beam [m]

gGM T
L/B=2.5
40
L/B=10 A minimum value can be given as input parameter by the designer.
30 Actual Limit In this case, a failure in fulfilling the condition does not imply to
Ship sample discard the solution, but such failure is highlighted in results.
20

10
2.5. Evaluation of CapEx and OpEx
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Since the aim of the present work is to understand the
Length [m] economic as well as technical feasibility of a specific sea trade
Fig. 12. L/B boundaries. comparing different possible engineering solutions, a measure of
merit which accounts for the economic value of the proposed
designs is needed. Two main cost items are taken into account: the
Capital Expenditure (CapEx) and the Operational Expenditure
30
(OpEx). The former item accounts for the design and construction
costs and in general for the initial investments, while all others
25
costs necessary to maintain and run the fleet during the operating
life, such as fuel and crew costs, are included in the latter term.
20
At this early stage of the design process, CapEx are computed as
Depth [m]

the sum of the costs of: hull (C Hull ), machinery (C Machinery ), pressure
15
D Min. vessels (C PV s , including dedicated piping and outfitting) and other
Depth ship outfitting; all these items are found as a function of their
10
weight, earlier determined, except for the cost of machinery which
5
Ships Sample L <= 100 m 100 m < L < 108 m L > 108 m
10
0
9
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Ship length [m] 8

7
Fig. 13. Depth and minimum depth of the ship sample.
Freeboard [m]

longitudinal strength problems, and this aspect is not explicitly 5

treated elsewhere in the procedure. 4

2.4.5. Draught 1

Boundaries have been foreseen also for the draught of the ship. 0
The maximum value is given as a parameter in input to the 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

procedure, which might be relevant in case of shallow water ports Ship length [m]

(not used in the results reported), while the minimum allowed Fig. 14. Freeboard of the ship sample. (For interpretation of the references to color
value was arbitrarily set to 3 m to avoid propulsive problems. in this figure, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
196 G. Vernengo, E. Rizzuto / Ocean Engineering 89 (2014) 189–199
is function of the propulsive power:
CapEx ¼ C Hull þ C Machinery þ C PVs þ C outf
The following polynomial formulation, based on the total weight
of the hull, W H , has been adopted to compute the cost of hull
construction:
C Hull ¼  7  10  6 W 2H þ 1:6891W H þ 4625:6
The outfitting CapEx has been related to the weight of the systems
inside and outside the engine room, W M , by the formula:
C Outf ¼  1:7  10  3 W 2M þ 6:3671W M þ 304:89
The machinery cost has been computed based on the installed
power, P B , through the exponential formula:
C Machinery ¼ 1:7808P 0:8984
B ð24Þ
An algorithm is also implemented, accounting for a cost reduction
of 15% on all the items for the second ship in respect to the first
one of the fleet and of further 5% reduction for all the further sister
ships in respect to the second one.
As a default value, the same cost of the steel for the hull (Eq. 22)
has been used also for the cost of the steel pressure vessels, even
though specific values can be input in the procedure. Further
developments of the model will include a refined cost of the
pressure vessels construction, accounting separately for the raw
material and the manufacturing cost and considering other mate-
rials, in addition to steel.
As regards the contributions to the OpEx, they should be
divided into two main categories: Running costs, paid by the
owner of the ship even if the ship is not trading, and the Operating
costs in a strict sense, associated with the sailing ship, such as
bunker or agency fees.
The OpEx of the first operating year accounts for the consum-
ables cost, Ocons (based on the average fuel consumption computed
in the seakeeping calculation), for the maintenance cost, Omaint, for
the crew cost, Ocrew, and for other costs, Ooth, including insurance.
The functional relations used for crew and maintenance costs are
respectively expressed by the following equations:
Ocrew ¼ 236:34ðLBDÞ0:1347
Oma int ¼ 0:015CapEx
The total OpEx are provided by the following sum:
OpEx ¼ Ocons þ Oma int þ Ocrew þ Ooth
All the above formulations provide a simplified estimation of the
inherent costs at a very preliminary stage of the design and are
derived by proprietary data made available by courtesy of external
sources (in anonymous form).
3. Ranking criteria
Since the aim of the presented procedure is to support the
decision making at a preliminary phase, a ranking criterion to
allow the comparison of the proposed feasible solutions is to be
defined. The most effective measure of merit for a fleet of ships
devoted to a specific sea trade would be the profit, i.e. the
difference between the discounted values of income and expenses
distributed over time. The income values, however, may depend
very much on how the contract is formulated (which is not yet
defined at the present stage of the analysis).
Further, the discounting computation should be carried out with
the techniques of actuarial mathematics, accounting for an interest
rate (Benford, 2003), and (if applicable) for a tariff escalation rate.
These information, too, are not likely to be available at a preliminary
stage of the design.
ð21Þ
Two indicators have been selected for the performance assess-
ment. The first one is the percentage of success in the annual cargo
delivery: this represents the amount of the cargo which is actually
delivered over a year, in percentage of the nominal value; such
percentage strongly depends on the average velocity of the ships
ð22Þ
of the fleet, which is lower than the design one, due to the effect of
rough sea.
The other indicator used for the fleet ranking is the Required
Freight Rate (RFR) t, (see Benford, 2003), that corresponds to the
ð23Þ
tariff (per unit ton of transported cargo) and that balances income
and costs, producing a zero net profit. The computation is carried
out over a selected period of 20 years, neglecting, however, the
interest rate effect (IRR is thus set equal to zero). As the yearly field
production (QYFP) of gas is known, and the CapEx and OpEx are
computed, the tariff is calculated by means of the following
simplified formula:
n
CapEx þ∑20
n ¼ 1 ð1 þIRRÞ  OpEx
t¼ ð28Þ
20  Q YFP
The simplification is justified by the fact that the final purpose of
the fleet generation process is not to predict the actual breakeven
tariff required but to make relative comparisons among feasible
design options.
According to the above, the fleet which is characterized by the
lowest possible tariff, t, and ensures the highest possible percen-
tage of success in the annual cargo delivery may be considered as
the best one for the trade. These objectives are somehow conflict-
ing requirements (a ship which is reliable in delivery needs to have
a higher installed propulsion power and to use it more, thus
increasing CapEx and OpEx with respect to a less reliable solution).
According to the multi-objective optimization theory, the best
solutions will lay on a Pareto boundary, whose shape is deter-
mined by the relative weight of these two objectives. The single
optimal solution, belonging to the Pareto boundary, can be
determined on the basis of these weights.
ð25Þ
ð26Þ 4. Compressed natural gas (CNG) fleet design
The integrated design procedure has been applied to a specific
test case. A CNG trade between a loading and an unloading
ð27Þ
terminal along a route of about 900 nautical miles in the North
Sea, characterized by the scatter diagram taken from (IACS, 2001),
has been considered.
The assessment of a fleet of ships is a design process which
involves a great number of variables. The choice of which variables
are to be let free to vary (free variables) possibly within a pre-set
range of variation and which ones, on the contrary, have to be kept
to a fixed value (parameters) needs to be made at the beginning,
since the choice affects the outcomes of the process itself.
It is clear, on the other hand, that increasing the number of free
variables, while allowing the exploration of a wider design space,
results in a higher complexity of the computation, with longer
CPU times.
In the present application, for example, the sea-margin (see
Section 2.3) will be considered as a constant value parameter
(equal for all solutions). In principle, however, it should be
regarded as a free variable, because, as mentioned, it affects the
performance of a given solution with respect to rough sea, in
terms of possibility of keeping the schedule (percentage of
success) but also in terms of CapEx (cost of the installed engine)
and OpEx (cost of fuel).
 G. Vernengo, E. Rizzuto / Ocean Engineering 89 (2014) 189–199 197

Table 3 Table 5
Loading/unloading terminals parameters. Free design parameters.

Parameter Value Unit Design Parameter Lower Bound Upper Bound Step

Route 900 Nm Number of ships 1 3 1

Loading prod. rate 50 MMscf/day Ship nominal speed [knots] 10 24 2
Loading rate 10 MMscf/h Long. number of PVs 12 72 1
Gas loading density 0.226 t/m3 Transv. number of PVs 4 22 1
Gas loading pressure 230 bar
Unloading prod. rate 50 MMscf/day
Unloading rate 10 MMscf/h
Gas unloading density 0.021 t/m3
Gas unloading pressure 30 bar 1 Ship 2 Ships 3 Ships
800

Nominal gas capacity per ship [MMscf ]

700

Table 4 600
Ship parameters.
500
Parameter Value Unit
400
Sea margin 20 %
Min. GMT 3 m 300
Min. roll period 8 sec
200

100
4.1. Input parameters for the scenario definition
0
Part of the input data for the problem definition is represented 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
by the characteristics of the terminals and of the transported gas. Ship speed [knots]
The production rate, as well as the loading and unloading rates
Fig. 15. Nominal gas capacity per ship vs ship speed (parameter: number of ships).
and the information linked with the gas, such as the loading and
unloading pressures and densities, are listed in Table 3.
As earlier mentioned, some constraints about ship character-
istics are also given in input to the process. These parameters, such 1 Ship Fleet 2 Ships Fleet 3 Ships Fleet

as the engine margin, the minimum allowed GMT or the minimum 100
Success in the annual cargo delivery [%]

allowed roll period, are listed in Table 4. 95

4.2. Bounds for variations of free variables 90

85
In the present test case, the number of ships composing a fleet,
nS, their nominal velocity, VS, the maximum number of pressure 80
vessels along the hull length, NX, and the maximum number of
pressure vessels along the beam of the ship, NY, are selected as 75
design variables. The selected ranges for the free variables adopted
70
for a first application of the model are listed in Table 5, together
with the step considered for the variations. Considering the 65
chosen bounds and steps, 27,816 possible fleets were considered 5000 25000 45000 65000 85000 105000 125000
in the process. Light Ship Weight of the fleet [tons]

Fig. 16. Percentage of success in the annual cargo delivery vs LSW of the fleet.
4.3. Numerical results and comparison of feasible solutions

Once the input parameters to the problem have been chosen,
several combinations of number of ships, nominal velocity and
nominal capacity, QS, are determined on the basis of a preliminary
analysis (Giribone et al., 2013).
Results of this first step are shown in Fig. 15; each curve of the plot
represents a given number of ships, and each point of a curve
represents the nominal gas capacity, expressed in millions of standard
cubic feet (MMscf), for each ship of the fleet, expressed in function of
nominal speed (in knots). Fig. 15 shows the strong effects that the
number of ships in the fleet has on the ship dimensions. Since the
loading and offloading rates at terminals do not depend on ships
characteristics (in this specific example trade), the percentage of time
devoted by each fleet to loading/unloading operations is very different
in dependence on the number of ships: for instance, in a fleet made of
a single ship, when that ship is moored at terminal, the whole fleet is
not sailing, while, for multiple ships, when one is charging or
discharging, the other ones are sailing, raising the efficiency of the
transport. The volume capacity required for each single ship (and for
the fleet) has obviously an inverse dependence on the number of
ships, but, according to what is noted above on the efficiency of the
transport, such dependence tends to be very strong for a small
number of ships (Fig. 15). This effect depends only on the ‘bottleneck’
represented by the loading /unloading rate at terminals.
For each of the mentioned triplets (nS; VS; QS) identified in the
preliminary analysis, different solutions are generated, evaluated
and checked via the described design procedure by means of a
systematic variation of the two remaining free variables, NX and NY.
The results of the whole design process are shown in Fig. 16 in
terms of technical data: the percentage of success in the annual gas
delivery, which, as mentioned, accounts for the possible reduction in
speed due to the adverse sea conditions, is shown against the light
ship weight of each feasible designed fleet. Then, in order to compare
solutions with relative high performances, those featuring a percen-
tage of success higher than 85% are selected. In order to give an
198 G. Vernengo, E. Rizzuto / Ocean Engineering 89 (2014) 189–199

1 Ship Fleet 2 Ships Fleet 3 Ships Fleet 1 Ship Feelt 2 Ships Fleet 3 Ships Fleet
60 100

Success in the annual cargo delivery [%]

99
55 98
97
50 96
95
Ship Beam [m]

45 94
93
40
92
91
35
90
30 89
88
25 87
86
20 85
100 120 140 160 180 200 220 240 260 280 300 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Ship Length [m] OpEx [%]

Fig. 17. Length and beam of the selected ship sample. Fig. 20. OpEx fleet vs annual percentage of success.

nominal values are computed with reference to nominal speed (in

1 Ship Fleet 2 Ships Fleet 3 Ships Fleet
calm water): due to the presence of waves, the actual speed is
100
Success in the annual cargo delivery [%]

99 always lower of the nominal one and this results in an annual

98 delivery of cargo smaller than the nominal. To overcome the
97 problem, a further design variable could be introduced, corre-
96
95 sponding to an increasing factor to be applied to the annual
94 volume of gas to be transported when defining the volume
93 capacity of the fleet (and of the single ship). A different approach,
92
91 simpler from a procedural viewpoint, is to use the actual percen-
90 tage of success obtained in the first run of the process as a
89 feedback to correct the input data: the procedure may be run for
88
87
a second time with an increased nominal gas capacity; acting this
86 way, a new percentage of success will be obtained which, applied
85 to a higher nominal value, may match the previous goal in terms of
55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
cargo delivered.
Trade Tariff [%]
As regards the stripes of points which may be noted in
Fig. 18. Trade tariff vs annual percentage of success. Figs. 18–20 for the cases of single-ship fleets, they are caused by
the ship speed. In fact, to each stripe corresponds a velocity or at
least a range of two close ones which result in fleets of quite
1 Ship Fleet 2 Ships Fleet 3 Ships Fleet similar ships in terms of main dimensions and hence of overall
100
Success in the annual cargo delivery [%]

performances.
99
98
The lower trade tariff is experienced by fleets with two ships;
97 although, those fleets are not able to deliver more than about the
96 93% of the nominal capacity per year, due to the effects of the
95
94
adverse sea conditions. On the other hand, one-ship fleets seem to
93 be able to have better performances in terms of yearly delivered
92 gas but with higher costs. For the specific case under examination,
91
fleets composed by three ships do not seem to be competitive.
90
89 This result can be interpreted in terms of CapEx and OpEx.
88 Observing Figs. 19 and 20, it can be noted that the fleets composed
87
by a single ship have the higher investments costs due to the
86
85 greater dimensions of their ships, while there are not significant
40 50 60 70 80 90 100 differences between the solutions with two and three ships. On
CapEx [%] the other hand, the operational costs feature a different trend: the
Fig. 19. CapEx fleet vs annual percentage of success.
lower values are experienced by fleets made of a single ship and
the costs increase with the number of ships.
This kind of results are the basis for the non-trivial choice of
overview of the dimensions of the fleets belonging to this subset, they the best suitable configuration in terms of number of ships,
are represented in a length-beam plane in Fig. 17: as expected, the nominal velocity and main dimensions of each ship. The final
ships derived from fleets with a different number of vessels feature decision, however, should be based on a weighting of the two
quite different dimensions. aspects (success in delivery and total cost) that could possibly
The two ranking criteria of the fleet sample, i.e. the overall depend on the formulation of the specific transportation contract.
breakeven tariff and the annual success percentage, are shown
in Fig. 18, while annual success percentage relative to CapEx and
OpEx of the fleets are shown in Fig. 19 and in Fig. 20 respectively. 5. Conclusions and discussions
As regards the values of the percentage of success, it should be
noted that none of the fleet under consideration are able to supply An automatic and integrated preliminary design procedure has
100% of the nominal cargo. This is because at the beginning the been established to generate and evaluate feasible technical
 G. Vernengo, E. Rizzuto / Ocean Engineering 89 (2014) 189–199
solutions for a trade of CNG and a first trial application has been
carried out for a specific case. The procedure covers the typical
aspects of ship design: selection of main hull dimensions, identi-
fication of weight (steel, outfitting, pressure vessels and cargo),
propulsion and fuel consumption at nominal speed, trim and
stability checks. It includes, also, more innovative subjects, like
the prediction of added resistance and consumption in waves,
which makes the final economical comparison between the
various solutions more meaningful, by allowing a trade between
solutions with better seakeeping performances, with larger CAPEX
(larger ships) and ships with worse hydrodynamic performances
but lower construction costs.
Given the novelty of the technical solution examined, the
investigation is carried at a pre-feasibility stage, characterized by
estimations of technical as well as economical parameters with
quite wide margins of uncertainty. In this respect, the present
application of the ship synthesis model may be less accurate than
analogous procedures focused at exploring more defined design
spaces, but, on the other hand, it covers new aspects related to the
specific transportation mode that have a considerable impact on
the final ship design.
An approach of this type is considered suitable to deal with
technical problems that have not yet a consolidated solution and
therefore need to investigate large design spaces (much larger
than those already explored by existing solutions). In the present
case, the peculiarity of the problem stands in the combination of
the properties of the transported cargo (i.e. the compressed
natural gas, with very small specific gravity) with the character-
istics of the containment system (i.e. large pressure vessels in
steel, with significant weight and dimensions). This brought the
need for exploring, in a pre-screening phase, solutions beyond the
classical variation ranges adopted for the characteristics of
existing ships.
A trial application of the procedure to a realistic case showed the
capability of the methodology of providing useful results for a
preliminary evaluation of the feasibility of the general technical
solution (CNG carried by ship) and for a pre-screening of the more
promising base design choices: number of ships, speed, dimensions.
Refinements in the input data at a later stage of the design (in
particular as regards the weight and cost coefficients) are possible,
in order to obtain more accurate results.
Future developments of the procedure will be to consider
different solutions for the gas containment systems including the
use of innovative materials. This will allow an evaluation of such
solutions in a cost/benefit perspective.
Other developments in the use of the procedure could be
represented by the enlargement of the design space under investiga-
tion. In the present application, a space of 4 design variables has been
investigated: number of ships, speed and maximum number of
pressure vessels in the longitudinal and transversal direction, with
pre-defined ranges and steps of variation. Other free variables can
easily be added in the definition of the investigation space, in
particular: the sea-margin coefficient adopted to select the installed
propulsion power from the calm water power prediction and an
analogous increasing coefficient that could be defined to increase the
volume capacity of the fleet with reference to the nominal volume,
computed with the nominal (calm water) speed.
The upgrading of these two quantities (already present in the
procedure, but treated as fixed parameters) to the role of design
(free) variables would allow exploration of the trade-off between
the opposite strategies of increasing ship dimensions and increas-
ing propulsive power. Both strategies can in fact be used to
counterbalance the decrease of cargo delivery due to the speed
reduction determined by adverse sea conditions.
The possible increase in the number of design variables (those
above mentioned or other ones), however, should be coupled in
199
future applications to the development of an optimization strategy
able to drive automatically the investigation towards the best
fleet configuration, without analyzing and storing all the possible
combinations of solutions (as presently done). This, on the other
hand, would imply the definition of a specific multi-objective
target function and the use of an optimization algorithm such as
the one presented in Deb et al. (2002).
Acknowledgments
The basis of this work has been laid down during the devel-
opment of a project developed for Registro Italiano Navale (RINa),
whose financial support is gratefully acknowledged.
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