Every shipping manager wages an endless battle against fouling—the bacteria, seaweed, barnacles and other marine life that take residence on the hull of ships.
This biofouling is thought to add more than 20 per cent to the fuel costs of commercial shipping—that’s a big cost for the maritime trading nations of Australia and Indonesia.
Every shipping manager wages an endless battle against fouling—the bacteria, seaweed, barnacles and other marine life that take up residence on the hull of ships within days of it entering the water.
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This biofouling is thought to add more than 20 per cent to the fuel costs of commercial shipping, not to mention the added journey time for a ship weighed down with barnacles. That’s a big cost for the maritime trading nations of Australia and Indonesia, potentially adding up to billions of dollars per year.
Using lasers and a window in a ship’s hull, researchers will assess how quickly the efficiency of the ship declines, and then how to balance fuel efficiency and the cost of putting a ship in dry dock to clean it. Continue reading Putting a window and lasers in a ship’s hull to improve efficiency
Port cities can be lively, vibrant hives of activity—the hub of a nation’s economic health— if they’re planned well.
Indonesia’s busiest port, Tanjung Priok, has roughly two and a half times the container traffic as the Port of Melbourne. But it also has a reputation as one of the least efficient ports in Asia.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has recognised the need to transform the nation’s ports and plans to develop 24 new ports by 2019. One recently established, state-of- the-art port is Teluk Lamong in Surabaya.
Continue reading Making efficient ports to keep cities connected
Airplane fuel consumption, shipping costs, climate change, engine noise, blue green algae spread, windfarm efficiency, and the speed of Olympic rowing boats could all change dramatically if scientists can crack the 150-year-old mystery of boundary layer turbulence.
And that’s what University of Melbourne engineers are hoping to achieve with a supercomputer model that can do 3,000 years’ research in one year, a purpose built wind tunnel, and a new air-sea interaction facility.
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Banner image: What happens when earth, wind, and sea meet? Inside the University of Melbourne’s new wind tunnel
Credit: Joe Vittorio
