Delivering the confidence to convert a container ship.

Our client faced a potential delay on a high-profile project: repurposing a commercial container ship as a naval resupply vessel. The conversion had a novel arrangement of 12 fuel and cargo tanks at different positions between decks. The shipbuilder needed to provide swift, independent design reassurances to keep the project on track for delivery.

We quickly performed tank sloshing assessments in three stages:

Simplified, ‘Level 1’ screening assessment

Identifying tanks with potential problems requiring more detailed, Level 3 analysis.

‘Level 3’ analysis using our leading Aquarius software 

Calculating wall pressures in partially filled tanks by capturing representative motion of the vessel and tank boundaries, along with the dynamic response of the fluid in the tank. 

Strength assessment of affected panels and stiffeners 

Using the tank wall pressures to evaluate structural integrity.

Our Aquarius software is a two-dimensional sloshing analysis system that applies computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodologies. We originally developed Aquarius to assess large LNG carrier tanks. Sloshing assessments followed our ShipRight Structural Design Assessment (SDA) guidance and approach to performing scantling assessment.

Analyses confirmed that the design’s safety factors were acceptable. Our client was able to provide the necessary assurances to proceed with tank modifications. The efficiency of these assessments contributed to the conversion being delivered successfully, on time and to budget. 

Such analyses can also be used to optimise the design arrangement of multiple tanks and assure requirements are met.