MARIN and the Dutch government join forces to examine the navigational safety of inland ships in shallow water


MARIN has joined forces with Rijkswaterstaat – the Dutch government’s executive agency in charge of public works and water management in the Netherlands - to assess the navigational safety of inland ships in sailing conditions, particularly when they are in very shallow waters.


T


he Dutch rivers and canals are of vital importance to transport cargo into and throughout the Netherlands. However, the capacity in these traffic corridors is highly dependent on the water level, which drives the loading capacity of the sailing ships.


Antoine Bedos, Anke


Cotteleer & Wytze de Boer a.bedos@marin.nl


16 report


With more frequent and longer episodes of low water levels, such as in 2018 and 2019, inland waterway transport is becoming more and more vulnerable to climate changes in light of global warming. It is therefore critical to review and adapt good practice and regulations to these episodes of low water levels, with sustainable solutions in line with the objective of zero-emission shipping by 2050. For this reason, MARIN and Rijkswater- staat have launched a large-scale investigation on the prediction and modelling of sailing performance on fairways and rivers in order to assess current guidelines for under keel clearances and fairway dimensions.


Assessment of manoeuvring performance As part of this project, an extensive study of the manoeuvring performance in very shallow water was carried out at our facilities. A robust and complete mathematical model of a representative inland ship was prepared by means of cross-checked model tests and CFD calculations (see Figure 1). This mathematical model focussed on reproducing hydrodynamic forces and moments on the ship hull in different conditions.


Effects of very shallow water on the hull forces have been identified and will now be used in numerical models. This prediction of the manoeuvring performance of inland ships will also be further improved and extended to other types of ships sailing in inland waterways in the coming years. Results will help local authorities to determine safe ship drafts (cargo loads) during low water periods.


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