Life Cycle Performance Assessment Tool Development and Application with a Focus on Maintenance Aspects

Abstract

Ships are among the most complex systems in the world. The always increasing interest in environmental aspects, the evolution of technologies and the introduction of new rule constraints in the maritime field have compelled the innovation of the ship design approach. At an early design stage, there is the need to compare different design solutions, also in terms of environmental performance, building and operative costs over the whole ship life cycle. In this context, the Life Cycle Performance Assessment (LCPA) tool allows an integrated design approach merging the evaluation of both costs and environmental performances on a comparative basis, among different design solutions. Starting from the first tool release, this work aims to focus on the maintenance of the propulsion system, developing a flexible calculation method for maintenance costs prediction, based on the ship operational profiles and the selected technical solution. After the improvement, the whole LCPA tool has been applied on a research vessel to evaluate, among different propulsion layout solutions, the one with the more advantageous performance in terms of costs during the whole vessel operating life. The identification of the best design solution is strictly dependent on the selection criterion and the point of view of the interested parties using the LCPA tool, e.g., the shipbuilder or the ship-owner.

Decision support methods for sustainable ship energy systems: A state-of-the-art review

“…Furthermore, a method was presented in [61][62][63][64] to support decisions on the environmental and economic sustainability of ships propulsion system by combining LCA and LCC. In addition, a life cycle performance assessment method was introduced in [65], where the LCC and LCA are incorporated in one indicator through normalisation, thus providing additional flexibility for including other indicators of interest.…”

Design of Hybrid-Electric Megayachts: The Impact of Operative Profile and Smart Berthing Infrastructures

“…It is quite complicated to exactly hypotheses an operative profile for a megayacht. While analysing other type of vessels, like merchant and passenger ships or also naval ships, the identification of a route or a mission profile is more straight forward [26][27][28][29][30]. For a megayacht, the operative profile is strongly influenced by the shipowner attitudes and it can be even more complicated in case of chartering (where different clients use the same vessel as they wish).…”

A Comparative Analysis of EEDI Versus Lifetime CO2 Emissions

“…Several researchers have looked into alternative ship machinery configurations and how these could affect the EEDI. Alternative power plant configurations for a research vessel were assessed by employing the EEDI, as well as various other indicators [22]. The analysis of the power plant configuration of a liquefied hydrogen tanker was performed considering economic, technical and environmental criteria, as well as the EEDI [23].…”