The Japanese maritime industry has jointly launched a project, involving 10 organisations, entitled ‘Development of Integrated Simulation Platform for Sustainable and Competitive Maritime Industry’.
The participants are MTI (a NYK Group company), Mitsubishi Shipbuilding (MHIMSB), Tsuneishi Shipbuilding, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Japan Marine United (JMU), Mitsui E&S, National Maritime Research Institute (NMRI), Tsuneishi Akishima Laboratory, University of Osaka Graduate School of Engineering (UOsaka) and Kyoto University (KU). The project has been selected for assistance by JST, the Japan Science and Technology Agency.
The partners see the focus of shipping shifting towards high-performance next-generation ships that adopt alternative fuels to reduce GHG emissions, energy-saving technologies such as wind propulsion, and advanced integrated control systems including autonomous navigation. Japan’s maritime industry faces the challenge of developing and supplying next-generation ships with increasingly sophisticated and complex functions in a short lead time, while expanding its shipbuilding capacity to meet growing global demand amid a declining labour force.
To address this, the project will establish an ‘Integrated Simulation Platform’ that enables simultaneous consideration of ship lifecycle and supply chain, at the initial development and design stages, to optimise ship design and construction plans. This project will promote the implementation of virtual engineering concept and techniques into the maritime industry. Additionally, technology for seasonal weather and sea condition predictions that impact the safe and stable ship operations, covering one to three months in advance, including extreme phenomena such as typhoons, will be developed and integrated into the platform.
Image: Components of the Integrated Simulation Platform (source: Mitsubishi Shipbuilding)
