South Korea’s Korean Register and Shipbuilding Majors Collaborate on Green Ship Tank Design
South Korea’s classification society Korean Register (KR) and compatriot shipbuilding majors HD Hyundai Mipo and HD KSOE have joined forces to enhance the safety and sustainability of tank design for green ships.
The trio recently inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to incorporate Engineering Critical Assessment (ECA) techniques into the design of Type-C cargo tanks for liquefied gas carriers, ensuring their structural integrity.
Type-C tanks, commonly utilized on small to mid-sized gas carriers and bunkering vessels for their structural autonomy and ability to store high-pressure cargo, necessitate precise structural analysis to guarantee safety during the transportation of alternative fuels like LNG, ammonia, and hydrogen.
KR, HD Hyundai Mipo, and HD KSOE have set out to tackle these technical obstacles by integrating ECA, a fracture mechanics-based structural analysis approach, early in the design process.
ECA models potential crack propagation in metallic structures and evaluates their ability to withstand real-world operating conditions, making it ideal for the high-pressure, low-temperature environments characteristic of liquefied gas storage, as outlined by KR.
Per the MoU, HD Hyundai Mipo will conduct structural strength and fatigue assessments of the tanks, while HD KSOE will spearhead tank design and conduct ECA-based structural evaluations.
KR will oversee the safety and regulatory compliance of the design in alignment with its classification rules and the international convention (IGC Code), with the ultimate objective of granting an approval in principle (AIP).
LEE Dong-ju, Senior Vice President of HD KSOE, expressed, “This project signifies significant progress in ensuring the structural safety and design rationality of fuel tanks for green ships through the application of advanced structural evaluation techniques. We remain dedicated to advancing design and manufacturing technologies for environmentally friendly vessels.”