Hybrid propulsion and using liquefied natural gas (LNG) as the alternative fuel have been applied on automobiles and some small ships, but research investigating the fuel consumption and emissions over the total voyage of ocean-going cargo ships with a hybrid propulsion and different fuels is limited. This paper tries to fill the knowledge gap by investigating the influence of the ship mission profile, propulsion modes and effects of different fuels on the fuel consumption and emissions of the ship over the whole voyage, including transit in open sea and manoeuvring in close-to-port areas. Results show that propulsion control and electric power generation modes have a notable influence on the ship’s fuel consumption and emissions during the voyage. During close-to-port manoeuvres, propelling the ship in power-take-in (PTI) mode and generating the electric power by auxiliary engines rather than the main engine will reduce the local NOx and HC (hydrocarbons) emissions significantly. Sailing the ship on LNG will reduce the fuel consumption, CO₂ and NOx emissions notably while producing higher HC emissions than traditional fuels. The hybridisation of the ship propulsion and using LNG together with ship voyage optimisation, considering the ship mission, ship operations and sea conditions, will improve the ship’s fuel consumption and emissions over the whole voyage significantly.

With the increasingly strict international GHG (greenhouse gas) emission regulations, higher requirements are placed on the propulsion system design of conventional ships. Playing an important role in ship design, construction and operation, ship–engine–propeller matching dominantly covers the CO₂ emission of the entire ship. In this paper, firstly, a ship propulsion system matching platform based on the ship–engine–propeller matching principle and its application on WinGD 5X52 marine diesel engine have been investigated. Meeting the energy efficiency design index (EEDI) regulation used to calculate the ship CO₂ emission is essential and ship–engine–propeller matching has to be carried out with EEDI into consideration. Consequently, a procedure is developed combining the system matching theory and EEDI calculation, which can provide the matching results as well as the corresponding EEDI value to study the relationship between EEDI and ship–engine–propeller matching. Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis is performed to obtain the relationship of EEDI and system matching parameters, such as ship speed, effective power and propeller diameter, reflecting the trend and extent of EEDI when changing these three parameters. The results of system matching parameters satisfying different EEDI phases indicate the initial value selection in matching process to provide reference for the design of ship, engine and propeller under the EEDI regulations.

The further thermal efficiency improvement of marine natural gas engine is constrained by a knocking phenomenon that commonly occurs in gas-fueled spark-ignited engines. It plays an important role to investigate how the knocking occurs and how to predict it based on the engine simulation model. In this paper, a two-zone model is developed to provide the prediction of knocking performance and NO emission, which is verified by engine test bed data from a transformed marine natural gas spark ignition (SI) engine. Cylindrical division theory is used to describe the shape of the two zones to decrease the computational cost, as well as a basic mechanism for NO concentration calculation. In order to solve the volume balance, three boundary parameters are introduced to determine the initial condition and mass flow between the two zones. Furthermore, boundary parameters’ variation and knocking factor (compression ratio and advanced ignition angle) will be discussed under different working conditions. Result shows that the two-zone model has sufficient accuracy in predicting engine performance, NO emission and knocking performance. Both the increasing compression ratio and advanced ignition angle have a promoting effect on knocking probability, knocking timing and knocking intensity. The knocking phenomenon can be avoided in the targeted natural gas SI engine by constraining the compression ratio smaller than 14 and advanced ignition angle later than 30° before top dead center (BTDC).