Scholarly record

THE IMPACT OF THE LATEST RULES IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION ON THE PROJECT OF MEGA YACHT

V. Ruggiero

Abstract

The protection of the environment is surely the last frontier in the project for Naval Architects, as the new materials allow us to dare using complex shapes, open spaces, very appealing lines but the challenge is to match the increase in size of the modern mega yacht, who are often Ships of 90-100-120 meters and over, with the environmental protection and the capability for these enormous ‘toys’ to travel everywhere especially in the most suggestive corners of the planet respecting the air, sea and earth. The IMO, International Maritime Organization, has published new rules, effective for Yacht with “Keel laid” after 1 January 2016, defining the new standard IMO TIER III. Those new Rules will be effective in order to reduce the NOx pollution of more than 70% compared with the previous TIER II, and this is surely a very important goal, but as Designer of the yacht we have to face a problem: the engine has basically been the same since the end of 19th century, as for diesel cycle, we can make changes, adopt new devices, increase combustion efficiency, but the engines are still the same. So, Naval architects have co-operated with mechanical engineers to install on board the most modern engines, in order to respect the new rules, but this effort has not been without any cost. Similar to what happens with our cars, but in a more troubled way, the engines and the engine room space have become more and more complicated, there is less space in engine room and much more weight. In fact, in some case the exhaust treatment machineries have size comparable with the dimension of the engine itself and in some situations all this obliged the naval architects the make important changes, and furthermore is obviously not possible, simply increasing the dimension of the engine areas without effect on cost, stability etc. The work focuses on examining the study of two cases: the first is the case of a 70 m. Yacht, whose construction had started before 1 January 2016, that the Shipyard decided to upgrade , in order to offer a product already respecting the Rules; the second is the case of a Yacht, of over 90 m., whose project has been developed considering the new rules, adopting also a diesel electric solution to better meet the requirements.

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