Optimisation model for a ship's hybrid energy system with a Flettner rotor

This thesis attempts to investigate the effect of the implementation of Flettner rotors in the topology of the cruise ship Silja Serenade, which, in the year of this thesis dissertation, travels from Helsinki to Stockholm. The aim is the implementation of simulation models written in Matlab that simulate the behaviour of the ship topologies’ components, with the goal of minimising the global fuel consumption. The models refer to a particular time period defined by the provided data, but the structure is completely general and can be applied to the most different data and time periods, and for every ship. In the first part of this work, the literature part is described, covering the reasons of fuel consumption’s restrictions, the Flettner rotor’s old and recent history, the fundamentals of the ships’ topologies and a brief introduction to the optimisation theory. Those chapters are essentials in order to comprehend what are the motivations for the research topic and how the work is developed. The second part includes the building of the optimisation models, the logic that they follow and the results. Each component of the topologies will be explained separately, clarifying the assumptions taken over them and explaining why they are reasonable. The optimisation models will be explained step by step, discussing why each decision was taken and how they influenced the final results. In the final part, final conclusions will be drawn. Results will compare the case of different topologies in order to establish firmly the impact of the various topologies arrangements on the total fuel consumption, with a special focus on the effects that the Flettner rotors’ implementation has on it.