Technical Presentation –– 8 October September 2024
Graeme Elphinstone, Principal of Elphinstone Engineering, gave a presentation on Antarctic Expedition Programs to a meeting at Taylor Bros Marine in Hobart, Zoomed to the Australian Maritime College in Launceston, and streamed live to the wider fraternity on 8 October. The presentation was attended by 4 in Hobart, 10 in Launceston, and a further 5 participating online.
Graeme’s presentation essentially covered two topics: the engineering aspects and development in the design of logging and weighing systems revolutionising the industry, and Graeme’s personal exploits and journey with the French Antarctic Expedition across the ice.
Elphinstone Engineering has supplied the Korean, French and Australian scientific expeditions with heavy-lift sleds backed by four decades of innovation in heavy logging equipment.
A significant point that amazed our audience was that the French Antarctic expedition initially approached Graeme to build their sleds. How often does a company get such an opportunity totally left field of their core business?
Graeme included in his presentation a personal insight into the importance of embracing change and being innovative in business without being too ahead of the game. He invited any keen members at the presentation, including engineering students at the AMC, to inspect the Elphinstone facilities at Triabunna.
The presentation was recorded and is expected to be available soon on the RINA YouTube channel.
A “thank you” bottle of red wine was presented in appreciation of Graeme’s talk, and he answered many more questions offline after the presentation.
The Presenter
Graeme Elphinstone has spent a lifetime in engineering, heavy lifting and logging equipment, and is now the principal of his own company, Elphinstone Engineering, with head office and manufacturing facilities in Triabunna, Tasmania, and regional offices in Melbourne (Vic), Hervey Bay (Qld), and Manjimup (WA).
Chris Davies
One of Elphinstone Engineering’s many Antarctic heavy-lift sleds
(Photo courtesy Graeme Elphinstone)
(L to R) Chris Davies, Nipuna Rajapaksha, Michael O’Connor and Graeme Elphinstone
(Photo courtesy Chris Davies)
Technical Presentation –– 17 September 2024
Prof. Stephen Turnock, Head, School of Engineering, University of Southampton, gave a presentation on How will Shipping Meet its Zero Target of Decarbonising by 2050 to a meeting at the Australian Maritime College in Launceston, Zoomed to Taylor Bros in Derwent Park, Hobart, and streamed live to the wider fraternity on 17 September. The presentation was attended by 22 in Launceston, 5 in Hobart, and a further 11 participating online.
Stephen discussed various fuels and propulsion methods to minimise the environmental impact of shipping and reduce shipping carbon emissions to zero by 2050. His presentation proposed a number of net zero solutions, noting the importance of reducing carbon and other emissions as more than 90% of the world’s trade travels by sea!
In 2023 the IMO confirmed significantly more-stringent targets for achieving net zero by 2050 and with intermediate goals by 2030 and by 2040. Along with aviation, shipping is late to the efforts to decarbonise and, as a result, will need to act with pace. The aim of this presentation was to review the barriers to the adoption of zero-carbon future fuels and how that transition process can be accelerated.
There is still much uncertainty as to what option will be best. Is that hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, nuclear, or batteries? Whatever option is adopted, it is clear that the future fuel cost will increase. This puts pressure on ship designers to generate ships which are as efficient as possible and minimise other costs by using autonomous systems to reduce the number of crew. The presentation will focus on the use of time-domain analysis of ship performance data to investigate how well alternative power trains and fuels will perform for future ship designs. Simulations of future ship designs using this voyage data allows for the impact of energy-saving systems such as wind assist or air lubrication as well as alternate propulsion systems to be benchmarked against each other. By 2030, if shipping is to meet its targets, a significant proportion of new builds will need to be zero-carbon so naval architects need to be confident that they are making the right choices around fuel choice, which includes all of the potential greenhouse gas and other emissions. At present, many proponents are making cost-based predictions around future fuels which always has great uncertainty. Work at Southampton suggests that an evaluation of the wind-to-wake (WtW) ratio for a given ship provides an objective measure which will remove much of this uncertainty.
Stephen presented a case study of an Anemos 136 m cruise ferry, proposing various solutions for short-, medium- and long-term emission reductions.
The vote of thanks was proposed by Michael Woodward, and carried with acclamation.
The presentation was recorded and is now available on the RINA YouTube channel.
The Presenter
Professor Stephen Turnock is Head of the School of Engineering at the University of Southampton and has been part of the maritime engineering group there since 1988. His research interests are in hydrodynamics, energy efficiency and future fuels for ships, renewable energy, maritime robotics and performance sport. He led the development of the 138 × 6 × 3.5 m Boldrewood towing tank at the University of Southampton, the first new towing tank built in the UK for 50 years and largest university towing tank in the UK. He led the performance sports engineering team which was awarded a Queen’s Anniversary prize in 2012. The work reported in the presentation has primarily been funded through UK’s Clean Maritime Demonstration competitions.
Prof. Stephen Turnock making his presentation
(Photo courtesy Martin Renilson)
The audience for Prof. Stephen Turnock’s presentation
(Photo courtesy Martin Renilson)
Technical Presentation –– 13 August 2024
Michael O’Connor, Design Manager, Taylor Bros Marine, gave a presentation on Naval Crew Size and Habitability—Where is the Future? to a meeting at Taylor Bros Marine in Hobart, Zoomed to the Australian Maritime College in Launceston, and streamed live to the wider fraternity on 13 August. The presentation was attended by 11 in Hobart, 3 in Launceston, and a further 14 participating online.
What is the optimum crew size for a modern surface combatant? Habitability standards on surface ships have changed over the years with an increased focus on crew welfare, space and well-being. These standards potentially drive a reduction in crew size. This is not often reflected in reality, however, as major warships are increasing capability on the same platform, with warships becoming more multi-functional. On warships the increased capability on a single platform has driven an increase in crew size and crew are still, in general, divided by competencies and functional departments.
The commercial shipping industry has halved its crew size over the last 20–30 years with increased focus on automation and crew becoming more multi-skilled. Naval crewing policy, on the other hand, has not changed in the same manner as the commercial shipping industry with the introduction of more automated equipment. Crew sizes have been maintained with vessel size, and vessel capability has increased with the focus being on multi-functional platforms.
Taylor Bros has been involved in numerous installations and studies where modern crew habitability standards have been applied (or attempted to be applied) to installations and the increased vessel capability has driven a crew increase. A compromise needs to be made and some clear direction from Navy would be appreciated.
The devil is often in the details, but any crew increase has a flow-on effect to other ship’s auxiliary systems, while any crew decrease will have the same flow-on effect but in the reverse direction. Such an effect can have some major impacts on ship capability such as ship displacement, range and particularly endurance.
The presentation was recorded and is now available on the RINA YouTube channel.
Michael discussed Australian naval vessels, in particular the AWD’s increasing crew complement. His research has shown that increasing crew sizes on existing ships mean that they failed the navy’s own habitability standards, and reduced the vessels operational duration, due to additional stores consumption. He also looked at potable water, black and grey water capacities, amongst other considerations.
Michael made comparisons with commercial and merchant shipping, where the opposite trend is taking place, reducing manning to reduce costs. This is also due to more automated systems and commercial shipping moving towards autonomy.
The presentation was recorded and is now available on the RINA YouTube channel.
Michael’s presentation came from his paper on this topic jointly authored with Dean Bong and presented at the Warship 2024 conference in Adelaide. The full conference paper is reproduced with permission in the November issue of The Australian Naval Architect.
The Presenter
Michael graduated from UNSW Sydney in Naval Architecture with Honours in 2001 and obtained a double master’s degree in Integrated Advance Ship Design in 2012 from the University of Liège, Belgium, and Ecole Central de Nantes, France. He is currently the Design Manager at Taylor Bros Marine, and is responsible for oversight in all marine engineering and naval architecture related tasks within Taylor Bros. Taylor Bros have designed, manufactured and installed the entire accommodation facilities for the Hobart-class Destroyers and Sea 1180 Offshore Patrol Vessels. Michael has over 20 years of marine-based design experience, with expertise in the design and upgrade of naval amphibious vessels, patrol vessels and surface combatants.
Michael O’Connor (R) mid presentation and Nipuna Rajapaksha listening intently
(Photo courtesy Richard Boult)
