Amarcon and GTT sign cooperation agreement on sloshing prevention technology
Amarcon and GTT will develop technology that enhances the quality of sloshing measurement and prediction for LNG carriers.
Dalfsen, Netherlands, 17 April 2013 - Amarcon, a member of the ABB group, announced that it has signed a cooperation agreement with GTT (Gaztransport & Technigaz) to market and further develop a forecasting and advice software system for sloshing prevention onboard LNG carriers. The agreement was signed at the LNG17 Conference & Exhibition in Houston,US.
In the coming years, a significant growth in the long distance transport of LNG is expected. Consequently, a considerable number of new build LNG carriers will come into the market. It is clear that the safe operation of these vessels will be imperative. To respond to this demand, last year Amarcon and GTT already announced the joint effort on development of sloshing prevention software for LNG Carriers. The sloshing prevention is an advanced module within Amarcon's OCTOPUS advisory suite that will forecast and advise the crew with optimum route to achieve time savings while preventing risk for sloshing. Sloshing prevention will greatly boost the LNG tanker's safe conditions and optimize the operational availability of the ships.
"We are looking forward on working together with GTT in order to serve LNG carriers with a state of the art onboard sloshing advice, which will help crews to choose the route, speed and course with least risk for sloshing, so time savings can be achieved and damage to the LNG membrane tanks can be prevented. Also in the offshore LNG, we see large potential and need for this kind monitoring and advisory systems as a part of an asset management program" Leon, Adegeest, General Manager of Amarcon said.
GTT (Gaztransport & Technigaz) is a French engineering company formed in 1994 specializing in designing and licensing the construction of cryogenic LNG storage tanks for the shipbuilding industry.
Amarcon, a fully owned subsidiary of ABB, provides monitoring and forecasting software solutions for performance and availability optimization of sea-going vessels, and is the leader in vessel motion prediction solutions. ABB acquired Amarcon in august 2012 as an important step to expand its marine software offering. Today, ABB offers a wide range of marine advisory and optimization systems to the maritime and offshore market.
ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 145,000 people.
"OCTOPUS-Onboard is a really valuable tool for us during offshore construction projects"
This is a quote from Teun Hofman, Offshore Construction Manager at Jumbo Shipping. The Dutch company Jumbo Shipping operates multipurpose heavy lift vessels equipped with cranes that are used in heavy lift cargo transportation and subsea offshore installation.
"When our vessels are deployed in an offshore construction project, they execute the operation in DP mode. Because of the usage of the crane, these operations are really dependable on the weather. We use OCTOPUS-Onboard on a daily basis in order to determine the most optimum heading with regards to crane motions and for the DP system. Based on the OCTOPUS motion forecast we can accurately determine the heading in which the least severe motions will occur. As a result of this, we are able to plan operations more accurately and we have a better insight in the availability and operational window of our vessels during weather sensitive operations."
In order to generate a motion forecast, Amarcon prepares a 3-D hydrodynamic database that is used within OCTOPUS-Onboard. The database contains detailed information on the behavior of the ship at sea for a number of drafts. By combining the information on the actual draft coming from the loading computer, location and speed of the vessel, together with the information in the hydrodynamic database, OCTOPUS-Onboard can predict the sea-keeping behavior of the ship on its actual draft. OCTOPUS-Onboard uses data from the onboard weather forecast in order to predict how forecasted weather conditions will affect vessels motions.
Jumbo Shipping originally started out in the late 1950?s as a heavy lift cargo transporter. Since 2001 the company also has an offshore construction division. Hofman says: "Jumbo Shipping is getting increasingly involved in offshore construction projects. We are involved in a broad variety of projects such as the transportation and installation of topsides, wind turbine foundations and subsea manifolds."
Jumbo shipping currently operates a fleet of twelve specialized heavy lift vessels, with lifting capabilities varying from 500 to 1800 tons. Two new K-Class vessels have been ordered for deliverance at the end of 2013. These vessels have a lifting capacity of 3,000t at an outreach of 20m and will also be equipped with OCTOPUS-Onboard. For more information about Jumbo Shipping, please visit www.jumbomaritime.nl.
OCTOPUS hydrodynamic software available as module within VR4MAX® simulators
Source: Tree-C
Amarcon, a member of the ABB group, and Tree C have joined forces to develop accurate heavy lift and offshore simulators. For this purpose Amarcon's OCTOPUS hydrodynamics technology is available as a module for VR4MAX®. OCTOPUS- Onboard software is widely used within the nautical industry and is found on board most heavy lift vessels and a significant number of offshore construction vessels, for the purpose of (motion) monitoring and forecasting for performance and availability optimization.
Integration of OCTOPUS-Onboard within a simulator leads to several unique features.
Accurate hydrodynamics and decision support
On top of the accurate hydrodynamics calculations, including multi body hydrodynamics and added mass influences, all of the decision support mechanisms from OCTOPUS can be made available within the simulator as well. This includes the real-weather forecast feed to create an operational window in which the operation can be executed, and to rehearse the procedure within the available time window.
Realistic interaction with waves and weather
The visual representation of waves and the resulting hydrodynamic responses are consistent. With a sea state coupled to the VR4MAX® weather system realistic circumstances for procedure design, -validation, -timing and rehearsal are created.
Validated physics behaviour
The combined system, OCTOPUS hydrodynamics and VR4MAX® Physics Engine, have been validated with renowned engineering tools. The unit tests, representing a heavy lift scenario, show that the real time dynamic behaviour closely matches the predictions made by engineering systems. The fact that OCTOPUS is able to capture real data on board the vessel enables the simulator to be further fine-tuned based on this real life data. This leads to extremely accurate simulators for (offshore construction) vessels.
