Assessment of the impact of the use of liquefied natural gas on the main dimensions and traction characteristics of tugs with ice class Arc5

With the increase in the number of operations in freezing sea ports of the Russian Federation, and given the ability to provide bunkering with liquefied natural gas, the question of the expediency of using dual-fuel tugs is becoming important. In the absence of regulatory restrictions on the use of low-sulfur marine fuel, the issue of using natural gas can be resolved using the economic criterion of expediency. This approach relies on implementing economic models that need a certain set of input data about the tugboat for calculations. The study of the "ice" Rules of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, as well as the ice thicknesses characteristic of the Gulf of Finland in navigationally difficult winters, demonstrated the need to use tugboats with the arctic ice category. In the absence of a dual-fuel tugboat with an ice class sufficient for safe year-round operation in the waters of freezing ports, the authors created its mathematical model based on statistical data on tugboats with ice classes Arc4 and Arc5 and giving an idea of the design characteristics of this vessel in the first approximation, which is sufficient for conducting a feasibility analysis.

Thus, the object of the study is a mathematical model of an Arc5 ice-class LNG-fuelled tugboat, and the purpose of the study is to assess the impact of dual-fuel technical LNG solutions on the appearance and main characteristics of an Arc5 ice-class barthing tugboat.

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