FINLAND
Aker Arctic Technology - new ice laboratory for cold-climate projects
KER Arctic Technology Inc (AARC), established a year ago by Aker, together with minority shareholders Wärtsilä, ABB Oy, and Norwegian Aker Kvaerner Engineering & Technology, has built a new model testing facility in the revitalised Vuosaari port area in Helsinki. This is specially designed to perfect ice-going ships and offshore structures, and to model offshore operations in cold regions. AARC continues the work of Masa Arctic Technology Centre (MARC) in offering services related to developing ships and structures for operation in ice, together with marine engineering, design, and consulting work, as well as model and full-scale testing in ice. Today, as a separate independent company, AARC is offering its services globally on completely commercial terms. In addition to design and testing services, AARC is also developing its own portfolio of various conceptual ship designs for yards, shipowners, and offshore operators running ships and structures in cold waters. During 2006, net sales
A
of the company are estimated to be at around €4 million.
According to Mikko Niini, president of the company, the market is very active today. 'Most of our current work is related to ships for Arctic offshore operations, primarily in Russian Arctic areas, on tanker designs for transporting oil from those areas', he says. 'Last year, we increased our team of professional naval architects from some 15 to 25, mainly from the (now closed) project design department of Aker Finnyards' Helsinki yard. This enables us to offer design and construction services for much larger projects than previously to external shipyards, shipowners, and operators'. The new model basin is now undergoing final calibration tests, after which it will be fully commissioned. AARC's work is based on five decades of knowledge and experience accumulated from designing and constructing ships for ice navigation. It is believed that there is no other facility in the world with such a large full-scale test correlation database - the one most important asset for correctly predicting real physics from model testing. The previous ice model basin started operations in 1983, continuing the work of the first such facility dating from 1969. AARC's track record includes some 200 full-scale field tests and expeditions, 300 model test series, and 160 published papers at conferences and in journals.
More width for model basin
Capital investment in the new model testing facility and offices is nearly €10 million. The size new basin is 70m length (old: 77.3m), 8m width (6.5m) and 2.2m depth (2.3m). A decision to increase the width of the new basin was made so as to allow better possibilities for modelling offshore structures and operations. Typical of such tests are docking trials of ships against or close to icebound platforms, or those for oil or gas loading structures, to test the
THE NAVALARCHITECT FEBRUARY 2006
The new ice model laboratory of Aker Arctic Technology, at Vuosaari. The model basin (below) is wider than the previous one, to allow better possibilities for modelling offshore operations.
design or the ship or caisson, or both. Along the entire length of the basin floor there is a glass window, to allow unobstructed visual data gathering.
As at the MARC site, AARC's new test tank uses two carriages - one testing carriage, to which the ship model is attached, and one working carriage, which is used for measuring ice properties and for test preparation work as well as for ice handling. This carriage is also used for spraying to produce the fine-grain model ice, developed and refined for more than 30 years by AARC and its predecessors, to scale down the various different ice properties found in different real conditions in Arctic, Antarctic, and Sub-Arctic areas, or in rivers and on lakes.
The carriages of the new laboratory run on rails attached at roof-height along the basin - a change from the old laboratory where the rails were in the traditional position: underneath the carriages, on the sidewalls of the tank. Another difference, compared with the earlier facility, is that the new laboratory uses environmentally sound CO2
as its cooling media. Heat from the
cooling machinery is stored very efficiently in special transformers; this heat can be used for melting ice after a day of tests without need for external power. This saves an impressive 50% in power consumption. 'We can see future design work for AARC also involving Arctic LNG transportation, as well as with new activities in Russia's Yamal area, and in offshore developments around Sakhalin Island (Russian Far East), as well as involvement in many new activities in the Caspian Sea', believes Mr Niini. 'In all these cases, we have great opportunities to utilize the improved characteristics of the new model testing facility, which is additionally perfectly suited for shallow-water ice testing'. As the first examples of AARC's expanded new strategy, Mikko Niini mentions the recent design agreements for Russian Arctic tankers at Admiralty Shipyards (to export oil from the Prirazlomnoye field), and for Samsung Heavy Industries (for tankers to operate from the Varandei terminal in the Pechora Sea). These projects are described in more detail in separate articles.
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