Abstract
Ever increasing fuel prices, almost doubled in the last three years, and global pressure to reduce their environmental impact have been enforcing commercial vessel operators and designers to re-assess current vessel designs with emphasis on their propulsion systems and operational practices. In this paper the "Inclined Keel Hull (IKH)" concept, which facilitates to use larger propeller diameter in combination with lower shaft speed rates and hence better transport efficiency, is explored for a modern 3600 TEU container vessel with the aim of fitting an 13 % larger diameter propeller (and hence resulting 20% lower rpm) to gain further power saving over the similar size basis container ship with conventional "level keel" configuration. It appears that successful application of the "inclined keel Hull" concept is a fine balance amongst the maximum gain in propulsive efficiency, minimum increase in hull resistance and satisfaction of other naval architectural and operational requirements. In order to make the concept economically more viable, this paper concentrates on the fore body design with the possible combination of increase of volume in its fore body to recover the expected volume loss in the aft body due to the space for larger propeller and its low wave-making resistance to minimize the efficiency loss using a well-established optimization software.
