Accidental oil spills from pipelines or tankers have posed a big threat to marine life and natural resources. This paper presents a novel lightweight bilateral segmentation network for detecting oil ...spills on the sea surface. A novel deep-learning semantic-segmentation algorithm is firstly created for analyzing the characteristics of oil spill images. A Bilateral Segmentation Network (BiSeNetV2) is then selected as the basic network architecture and evaluated by using experimental comparison of the current mainstream networks on detection accuracy and real-time performances for oil samples. Furthermore, the Gather-and-Expansion (GE) layer of the semantic branch in the traditional network is redesigned and the parameter complexity is reduced. A dual attention mechanism is deployed in the two branches of the BiSeNetV2 to solve the problem of inter-class similarity. Finally, experimental results are given to show the good detection accuracy of the proposed network.
•Ghost-DABiSeNetV2 is capable of detecting oil spills.•The data enhancement by the ACE Algorithm based on pyramid decomposition.•CCAM and PAM are added to the Semantic Branch and Detail Branch of the original BiSeNetV2.•The traditional GE layer in the semantic branch is re-placed by a novel Ghost-GE layer with better speed and accuracy.
The interest in flying wings dates as far as the early years of the aviation age. Early investigations of the feasibility of the concept demonstrated increased aerodynamic efficiency and reduced fuel ...consumption. However, structural, engine integration, and stability and control issues prevented further development. In the 1990s, a new concept, the blended wing body (BWB), was created to alleviate some of the concerns of flying wings while maintaining increased efficiency and adding further benefits, such as reduced pollutant and noise emissions. Despite the promise, technical hurdles once again proved to be a deal breaker and, as of 2024, the only successful flying wing is the B-2 Spirit, an extremely complex and expensive aircraft. Nowadays, with the world quickly transitioning towards cleaner energy, the interest in the BWB has been renewed. The latest technological advancements in the aerospace industry should make its development more plausible; however, passenger comfort issues remain. Surprisingly, the BWB development may come from an unexpected application, as a tanker aircraft. As the U.S. Air Force is seeking a replacement to hundreds of aging tankers, a startup company was recently funded to develop the concept and build a prototype. In this study, we explore the history of blended designs from its early days, highlighting its opportunities and challenges—and why the design is an intriguing fit for application as a tanker aircraft.
Owing to the low efficiency of off-shore oil ships and the dangerous atmospheric pollutants of the environment that the cause of ships, solar photovoltaic and the energy storage batteries in a ship ...system are highly attracting attention. The basic objective of this article is to enterprise an optimal model suitable for large oil tanker ships. Therefore, most of this article discussed a design for hybrid renewable energy systems (HRESs) on an oil ship using a common optimization HOMER software. However, the incorrect sizing of HRES in the oil ships system will transpire higher greenhouse gasses (GHGs) and investment costs. So, this article presents a strategy of HRES on the ships between Egypt and China. The electric load’s profile data used are accurate and real, dependent on the sailing route of the ships directed from Dalian/China to Hurghada/Egypt. The optimal hybrid system contains solar photovoltaic (SPV), batteries storage, and diesel generator engine with a yearly capacity shortage of zero which is assigned to be the system completely reliable. The optimal system can decay the number of GHGs and the fuel consumption by 15,592,000 kg and 5,765,575L respectively in comparison with some stand-alone diesel generations during a project period. This reduction refers to an incentive factor that will lead to an essential role in raising the capacity of SPV installation on the off-shore oil. So, the HRESs minimized the total fuel prices and fuel consumption amounts. This article also discusses a comparison of HRESs on land and off-shore oil in a brief method.
•Optimal sizing of hybrid SPV/Diesel/Battery on ship directed from China to Egypt.•The HRES minimizes the total fuel prices and fuel consumption amounts.•An efficient way to reduce GHG emission which has negative impacts on human health.•This article offers a comparison between applying HRESs on the lands and ships.
Fuel transition can decarbonize shipping and help meet IMO 2050 goals. In this paper, HFO with CCS, LNG with CCS, bio-methanol, biodiesel, hydrogen, ammonia, and electricity were studied using ...empirical ship design models from a fleet-level perspective and at the Tank-To-Wake level, to assist operators, technology developers, and policy makers. The cargo attainment rate CAR (i.e., cargo that must be displaced due to the low-C propulsion system), the ES (i.e., TTW energy needed per ton*n.m.), the CS (economic cost per ton*n.m.), and the carbon intensity index CII (gCO2 per ton*n.m.) were calculated so that the potential of the various alternatives can be compared quantitatively as a function of different criteria. The sensitivity of CAR towards ship type, fuel type, cargo type, and voyage distance were investigated. All ship types had similar CAR estimates, which implies that considerations concerning fuel transition apply equally to all ships (cargo, containership, tankers). Cargo type was the most sensitive factor that made a ship either weight or volume critical, indirectly impacting on the CAR of different fuels; for example, a hydrogen ship is weight-critical and has 2.3% higher CAR than the reference HFO ship at 20,000 nm. Voyage distance and fuel type could result in up to 48.51% and 11.75% of CAR reduction. In addition to CAR, the ES, CS, and CII for a typical mission were calculated and it was found that HFO and LNG with CCS gave about 20% higher ES and CS than HFO, and biodiesel had twice the cost, while ammonia, methanol, and hydrogen had 3–4 times the CS of HFO and electricity about 20 times, suggesting that decarbonisation of the world’s fleet will come at a large cost. As an example of including all factors in an effort to create a normalized scoring system, an equal weight was allocated to each index (CAR, ES, CS, and CII). Biodiesel achieved the highest score (80%) and was identified as the alternative with the highest potential for a deep-seagoing containership, followed by ammonia, hydrogen, bio-methanol, and CCS. Electricity has the lowest normalized score of 33%. A total of 100% CAR is achievable by all alternative fuels, but with compromises in voyage distance or with refuelling. For example, a battery containership carrying an equal amount of cargo as an HFO-fuelled containership can only complete 13% of the voyage distance or needs refuelling seven times to complete 10,000 n.m. The results can guide decarbonization strategies at the fleet level and can help optimise emissions as a function of specific missions.
This paper presents the utilization of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data for monitoring and detection of oil spills. In this work, a case study of an oil spill has been investigated using C-band ...Sentinel-1A SAR data to detect the oil spill that occurred on 28 January 2017, near Ennore port, Chennai, India. Oil spill damages marine ecosystems causing serious environmental effects. Quite often, oil spills on the sea/ocean surface are seen nowadays, mainly in major shipping routes. They are caused due to tanker collisions, illegal discharge from the ships, etc. An oil spill can be monitored and detected using various platforms such as vessel-based, airborne-based and satellite-based. Vessel based and airborne methods are expensive with less area coverage. This process also consumes more time. For ocean applications such as oil spill and Ship detection, optical sensors cannot image during bad weather. As SAR is an active sensor, weather independent, and has cloud penetrating capability, the images can be acquired during the day as well as at night. Radar Remote Sensing (RRS) has rapidly gained popularity for monitoring and detection of oil spills and ships for more than a decade. With the availability of the satellite images, detection of oil spill has improved due to its wide coverage and less revisit time. The present paper gives an overview of the methodologies used to detect oil spills on the SAR images using dual-pol Sentinel-1A Level 1 SLC data. This work clearly demonstrates the preprocessing steps of the Sentinel 1A data for oil spill detection. The oil spill was only visible in the VV channel, therefore, for ocean application VV channel image is preferred. SEASAT was the first space-borne SAR mission launched in 1978 by NASA to observe sea surface. The preprocessing was carried out at the European Space Agency (ESA), the Sentinel Application Platform (SNAP) toolbox and Envi 5.1 toolbox. Based on the Sigma naught values, oil spill can be discriminated with the ocean surface. The results obtained with the VV channel are satisfactory and one could map out the oil spill very well. Supervised classifiers SVM and NN were applied on the boxcar filtered 3 × 3 VV channel image to delineate the oil spill. The result of oil spill detection mapping is validated with Supervised SVM and Neural Network classifiers. The results show there is a good agreement between oil spill mapping and classified image using SVM and NN classified images. The Overall Accuracy (OA) obtained using SVM classifier is 98.13% with kappa coefficient as 0.95 and using NN classifier is 98.11% with kappa coefficients 0.95. This technique is considered to be a potential proxy for the detection and monitoring of Oil spills on water bodies. Application of SAR data for oil spill detection is considered to be first of its kind from Indian coasts. This study aims to detect the oil spill occurred due to collision of two LPG tankers with Sentinel-1A SLC data in Chennai coast area.
•Oil Spill mapping using Sentinel-1A SLC SAR data.•Processing steps of Sentinel-1A SLC SAR data•The oil spill mapping result was compared with SVM and NN classifier result and the agreement was good.•The Overall Accuracy (OA) obtained using SVM classifier is 98.13% with kappa coefficient as 0.95.•This technique is considered to be a potential proxy for the detection and monitoring of oil spills on Marine water bodies.
This paper presents the technical and economic feasibility analysis of the subsea shuttle tanker (SST). The SST is proposed as an alternative to subsea pipelines and surface tankers with the primary ...purpose of transporting CO2 autonomously underwater from onshore facilities to subsea wells for direct injection at marginal subsea fields. In contrast to highly weather-dependent surface tanker operations, the SST can operate in any condition underwater. The technical–economic analysis is performed in two steps. First, the SST’s technical feasibility is evaluated by investigating designs with lower and higher capacities. The purpose is to observe the appearance of technical limits (if present) when the SST is scaled down or up in size. Second, an economic analysis is performed using the well-reviewed cost models from the publicly available Zero Emissions Platform (ZEP) and Maritime Un-manned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks (MUNIN) D9.3 reports. The scenarios considered are CO2 transport volumes of 1 to 20 million tons per annum (mtpa) with transport distances of 180 km to 1500 km in which the cost per ton of CO2 is compared between offshore pipelines, crewed/autonomous tanker ships, and SST. The results show that SSTs with cargo capacities 10,569 m3, 23,239 m3, and 40,730 m3 are technically feasible. Furthermore, the SSTs are competitive for short and intermediate distances of 180–750 km and smaller CO2 volumes of 1–2.5 mtpa. Lastly, it is mentioned that the SST design used the DNVGL Rules for Classification for Naval Vessels, Part 4 Sub-surface ships, Chapter 1 Submarine, DNVGL-RU-NAVAL-Pt4Ch1, which is primarily catered towards military submarine design. It is expected that a dedicated structural design code that is optimized for the SST would reduce the structural weight and corresponding capital expenditure (CAPEX).
This work investigates the potential of three different energy efficiency technologies on a Very Large Crude Carrier: Organic Rankine Cycle and adsorption chiller for waste heat recovery as well as ...photovoltaics for the integration of Renewable Energy Sources. The analysis uses operational data acquired from an energy management system. It shows that the impact of the weight of each technology is negligible when compared to fuel savings and emission reductions. Based on the sailing conditions identified from the operational data, the study presents an estimation of the theoretical and technical potential showing the overall savings, which can be achieved on an absolute scale. Moreover, the achievable improvement of EEOI and CII are presented. The available waste heat and the electricity demand of the vessel are identified as the limiting factors for the technology implementation.
Gas inerting process is a great hazard for chemical tanker ships and utmost care is required considering the harmful effects to humans’ health. Most of the chemical tanker ship-owners face near-miss ...or accident (asphyxia/fire/explosion) during gas inerting process on-board ship. The consequences of the process may pose catastrophic results such as explosion, fire or asphyxiation. Therefore, a detailed risk assessment is required to enhance the process of safety during the carriage of chemical cargo and minimize potential consequences. To address this concern, the paper aims at conducting a systematic probabilistic analysis of asphyxiation risk during gas inerting process in chemical tanker ship. In the paper, a Bayesian belief network (BBN) method is used to deal with causality and uncertainty arising from the complex interdependence between variables in the probabilistic risk assessment of asphyxiation risk. While BBN enables us to calculate the conditional probability of each intermediate node and leaf node in the graph and perform probabilistic risk assessment with sensitivity analysis, fuzzy logic deals with the translation of linguistic expressions from expert opinion into probability values. The findings of the paper will provide the utmost contribution for chemical tanker ship owners, safety researchers, maritime safety professionals, and HSEQ managers (Health, safety, environment, and quality) to prevent the risk of asphyxiation during gas inerting process in maritime transportation.
This research aims to develop a safety culture model by investigating the relationship between safety culture and driving performance. In previous studies, safety culture has been one of the factors ...that determine safety issues. These issues were then contextually transformed via a pilot study and organized in the form of a theoretical model. The data were collected from 307 oil and gas tanker drivers in Malaysia through questionnaire surveys. Consequently, structural equation models of partial least squares (PLS-SEM) were applied to statistically assess the final model of this study. The results showed that the implementation of safety culture contributes to driving performance at a substantial level; there is a strong association with an effect of 67.3%. The findings of this research would serve as a benchmark for decision-makers in the oil and gas transportation sector, as promoting an awareness of safety culture should boost the efficiency of drivers. This research fills a gap in knowledge by identifying that positive safety culture practices and mindset are direct antecedents for the improvement of driver performance and, thus, the avoidance of road accidents.
This paper aims to assess the direct economic impact on the maritime sector from its inclusion in the European Union-Emission Trading System (EU-ETS). The Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) ...data are analysed for the estimation of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions within the European Economic Area (EEA). The economic impact assessment model used is scenario-based, and includes different price incentives, geographical coverage and emission allowances allocation methods. According to our findings, in case the emission allowances are fully auctioned or partially free allocated on the basis of a uniform benchmark, the increased costs would be disproportional among the maritime segments. Such a scheme would penalise Roll-on/Roll-off (RoRo) and Roll-On/Roll-Off/Passenger (RoPax) segments due their high fuel consumption per transport work in relation to oil tankers and bulkers. The establishment of differentiated benchmarks per segment seems to be a prerequisite for the effective inclusion of shipping in the EU-ETS that will reward energy efficient vessels in each segment and avoid competition distortion within the maritime industry.
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