SP Novel Designs at Sea
Environmental requirements and increased oil prices are leading to a greater demand for energy efficient transports. Sea transport is acknowledged as the most environmentally friendly mode of transport with a great potential to become even better. SP’s maritime knowledge centre initiates, coordinates and supports activities leading to an increased use of advanced lightweight materials and constructions. We are in close co-operation with industries, authorities, shipping companies and classification societies and we are participating in the work of the IMO (International Maritime Organization). New types of construction materials can be IMO-approved provided you can demonstrate a high enough safety level. More weight-efficient materials and designs are therefore possible, which will increase load capacity and decrease fuel cost for shipping. There is a great interest in replacing construction weight with paying cargo and today, many million Euros are spent on research and development aiming at a reduced construction weight for ships and off-shore.
SP Novel Designs at Sea has support the development towards more weight-efficient transports and constructions at sea. To facilitate this we are providing tools and methods within the fields of fire and risk analysis, mechanical testing, noise and vibrations analysis as well as computation tools. We are also offering tools to analyze costs (LCC) and environmental consequences (LCA) of the new design at sea.
We are collaborating with different institutes and scientists and we have close contacts with authorities, industries and classification societies all over the world. We also coordinate and participate in research projects on a national and international level with focus on new lightweight designs.