Technical Presentation –– 13 November
Martin Renilson, Adjunct Professor, Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania, gave a presentation on Structural Integrity and Safety of Older Ships in a Seaway to meeting in the Engineering South Building at the University of Adelaide on 13 November.
Structural maintenance is a large cost driver in ship operations, and the desire to minimise these costs can risk degradation in a ship’s structural material state. Older ships have been lost due to global structural failure in waves, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.
This presentation described how the sea environment is characterised, the derivation of ship responses for global motions and stresses, and the influences of fatigue and corrosion. Methods of modelling were discussed with particular focus on the use of Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics and how the modelling technique can be used in combination with Finite Element Analysis.
The Presenter
Prof. Renilson moved to Tasmania in 1983 to work at the Australian Maritime College, where he established the Ship Hydrodynamics Centre in 1985, and the Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering in 1996, with the first naval architecture and then ocean engineering degrees at AMC. In 2001 he moved to the UK to work at QinetiQ as Technical Manager, Maritime Platforms and Equipment. In this role he was responsible for all hydrodynamic research for the UK Ministry of Defence. In 2007 he returned to Australia where he now has a position as Adjunct Professor at AMC/UTas.
He has recently been involved in a research project on the numerical modelling of ship response under corrosion, fatigue and complex sea-state environments which was funded by the Australian Research Council.
Technical Presentation –– 16 October 2024
Dr Yee Wei Law, Senior Lecturer, University of South Australia, gave a presentation on Adversarial Machine Learning: The Maritime Context to a joint meeting with the Institute of Marine Engineering Science and Technology in the Engineering South Building at the University of Adelaide on 16 October.
Adversarial machine learning (ML) is the study of the capabilities of attackers and their goals, as well as the design of attack methods which exploit the vulnerabilities of ML during the ML life cycle. Since the discovery of the adversarial vulnerabilities of deep neural networks by Google Deepmind in 2014, the field of adversarial ML has been experiencing exponential growth. Last year, the Australian Signals Directorate published Guidelines for Secure AI System Development, which include precautions against adversarial ML, highlighting the impact of adversarial ML. Together with the Australian Institute for Machine Learning, we have been investigating adversarial ML in the space context. This presentation covered the work we have done in the space context, and extend the lessons learnt to the maritime context, as well as discussing what other adversarial ML researchers have done in the maritime context, and highlight some implications which maybe of interest to the maritime community.
The Presenter
Dr Law received his BEng, MEng and PhD degrees from University of Southampton, Nanyang Technological University, and University of Twente respectively. Before joining the University of South Australia, Dr Law was a Research Fellow at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Melbourne. Dr Law’s research interests are diverse, but he is currently focussing on funded projects in the areas of adversarial machine learning, hypersonic vehicle detection, and machine prognostics. Dr Law has been involved with numerous European projects on sensor networks, including EYES, SENSEI, Internet of Things Initiative, SmartSantander and SocIoTal; being a Chief Investigator in the last three projects.
Technical Presentation –– 28 August 2024
Andrew Harris, Lead for the Hydrogen Powering of Vessels Project, Blue Ecomomy CRC, gave a presentation on Hydrogen Powering of Vessels to meeting in the Napier Building at the University of Adelaide on 28 August.
The Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre is a 10-year multi-participant academic and industry research program, looking at the future of the oceans to provide Australian energy, food and decarbonisation of seaborne transport in a sustainable future.
One of the Blue Energy CRC’s research projects currently being undertaken is an investigation into the future of hydrogen as a fuel for ships and boats in Australian waters. This presentation covered the research to date, including a review of global technology demonstrator vessels past, present and future. Work to study the redesign of conventional vessels to contain a hydrogen propulsion system was described, as well as case studies which modelled some of the key performance risks of hydrogen-powered vessels. Finally, a review of some of the technology options now entering the market was given.
The Presenter
Andrew Harris graduated with a Bachelor of Ship Science degree from the University of Southampton, UK. He joined BMT’s UK defence company as a naval architect in 1996, spending over 20 years working in naval submarine sustainment, surface warship design and, finally, superyacht concept design. Having emigrated to Australia in 2019, he remains with BMT, working in Adelaide on a diverse portfolio of defence, commercial shipping and marine renewable energy projects. Andrew is a Chartered Engineer and a Member of RINA. A passionate advocate for sustainable development of Australia’s blue economy, Andrew is the Blue Economy CRC’s lead for the Hydrogen Powering of Vessels Project.
