Master's thesis introduction

Digital Twins of Ship Propulsion Machinery

Digital Twin (DT) is a virtual or digital representation of a physical system taht is driven by the data of a physical system and can render the state and behaviors
identical to the real physical system. A system is considered as a DT if it has three main properties which include, A physical product, a virtual product with
data of the physical product, and a connection or synchronization of data and information between the virtual and the physical system.
DT is no longer a new concept or technology to industries, it is growing exponentially since it was first publicly introduced in 2002 by Michael Grieves
where he proposed DT for conceptual model of product lifecycle. Recently the maritime industry is experiencing a trend on digital twin, where companies
like Kongsberg, DNV GL, Navantia, Siemen, etc are devoting resources and research on DT and developing different DT,
this is also made possible due to the advancement of technologies like internet of things (IoT), Artificial intelligence (Al), machine learning (ML),
Deep learning (DL) and other algorithms also the advancement of hardware like sensors etc. This advancement has enabled DT to be used to perform different task and
purpose ranging from production development, Simulation of behaviors of a given product, creating of scenario to see how the physical product will perform on those conditions
and also a real time update status of the physical system when is under operational [1], [2], [3]

In shipbuilding industry and generally in maritime industry, DT offer diverse opportunities in all stage of the ship or product life cycle, during development of product.
DT could be used for Optimization of the design process, investigate efficient ways of reducing energy consumption, testing of different propulsion system, simulate operations of a ship, etc,
in this stage DT offer numerous opportunities in shipbuilding industry. After development, this is where the most promising part of DT lies where the ship or product is synchronized
with the virtual system using sensors and other advanced technology to get the physical state and behaviors of the product in real-time, this could serve a lot of purpose ranging maintenance,
predicting of failures in the product before it happens using the above-mentioned technologies.

Master's research

This master’s thesis will research and create Digital Twin of ship propulsion systems using JavaScript and other web base technologies, as mentioned earlier
that digital twin usually involved synchronizing physical system to the virtual system but the focus of this thesis will be to develop a system to be used during development and design phase
of vessel or ship therfore the thesis will not consider the synchronization of the individual systems with the virtual systems but used the data of each system to craete a Digital systems.

Methodolgy / approach

To create the digital twin of the different ship propulsion system, each product will be investigated to know the data of the that system that will be necessary to achieve the goal of the thesis.
The suppliers of the individual propulsion systems like Kongsberg maritime, Wartsila, ABB, MAN etc. provides the data of individual systems on their website therefore this will be the main source
of data collection nevertheless interviews will be conducted with the suppliers and the manufacturer of this product to have an in-depth understanding of how each product works.
This is important because it will aid in creating algorithms for each product that has the same feature, functions and behaviors of the physical system, example of the
product are battery management system (BMS), power management system (PMS) , etc.

Thesis expected result

At the end of the thesis a product is expected to be delivered which is the web base Digital Twin of ship propulsion systems. The DT will have the following features and functions as follows:

Each available DT product will perform the same function and or close to that of the physical production.
The product displayed on the site will be driven by the operational profile or type of ship.
On the web site user will be able to chose a product customized that product to meet their needs.
The web base system will allows Engineers to perform different analysis or compare the result of different machinery and simulations.
It will be possible to simulate an operation like DP, sailing, harbor, etc. and also allow to transits between this operation.
During the simulation different machinery could be adjusted to see the effect.

Note: The above mention features are subjected to change.

Process Flowchart

The image shown on the left shows a basic flowchart process which is numbered from 1 to 10, at this stage of the thesis much has not been implemented
so the flowchart only show an high level process flowchart. The steps involve are as follows according to there numbers :

Step 1

This step as shown represent the beginning of the process.

Step 2

In this step as stated in the flow is to “choose operation profile” of the ship or vessel, in ship design the machinery of the ship or vessel is a function of the operation of the ship, this concept prebuilt inside the system. Each ship operation chosen will have its own pre-defined machinery.

Step 3

This step involve automatically displaying the available DT of the machinery and their suppliers which is driven by the type of ship or vessel choose in step 2.

Step 4

This step involve displaying the details or data of the each DT that is available when click on it. In step 3, the type of machinery with different suppliers are display but in order to see the details a supplier has to be chosen to display the product data of the supplier.

Step 5

In this step, one will be provided with an option to select the product be best meets it’s need, this will be after the step 4 has been complete.

Step 6

This step involve finally adding the product to the vessel or ship propulsion machinery systems, this is after step 5 has been done and the product data meets the vessel requirement you intent to analyze or simulate.

Step 7

In this step you all the necessary propulsion system needed to build a vessel or ship has been added to the vessel, if they are not added go back to step 6 but if they are completed then move to the next step.

Step 8

This is where all the simulations are done, in this step you could decide what type analysis you want perform ranging from required power, required tank for an operation, emission, fuel consumption, compare different fuel emission, compare different machinery configuration performance. One of the important simulation is the ability to simulate operation, during this simulation a window will open for live monitor of the operation and it possible to creation a scenario to see how it will affect in real live since all the product will behave like the physical system.

Step 9

This step involve displaying the result of simulation in step 8