Lloyd’s Register (LR) has announced a new performance-optimisation service that will support ship-owners, builders and designers who are looking to develop solutions that offer more efficient performances for new and existing designs, and retrofits for ships in service.

“We are looking at the whole ship and its operational requirements,” said Luis Benito, LR’s Singapore-based marketing manager. ”Of course, right now, it’s all about reducing fuel-oil consumption. The market needs to know what’s feasible for existing ships as well as for new designs. We think that independent technical analysis and verification of performance is essential to making progress.”

Using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) as the central technological capability, LR is offering performance analysis that reaches well beyond the boundaries of traditional classification.

The CFD team is led by Dejan Radosavljevic, who has nearly 30 years’ experience in the field.

”Our track record of combining CFD with in-service measurements and observations to deal with issues related to propulsion hydrodynamics puts us in a great position to apply this problem-solving knowledge to finding and verifying new ways to improve operational efficiency,” said Radosavljevic. “The large body of work and in-service data we’ve built up over the years has helped us to fine tune our processes and validate our full-scale CFD analyses, so we can always seek solutions from computerised models of full-scale ships operating in real conditions.”

Benito said joining up the different areas of expertise within LR is the key to providing an unrivalled service.

”When looking at new ideas and innovation either for retrofit or newbuilds, we can marry sophisticated CFD tools with other skills that we have,” he said. “Working with the technical insight of our energy-management experts, we can help to generate and analyse the solutions needed to create more efficient ships.”

The service’s team of energy-management experts will be led by Katharine Palmer, manager, marine product development – environment. Working with Benito to provide leadership in new design and novel concepts is Hector Sewell, global head of marine business development.

”It’s all about the bottom line,” says Sewell. ”It’s one thing to that say something has been optimised. It’s quite another to have gone through a clear process of analysis and verification that helps clients to make decisions with confidence.”