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Design of LNG storage and feeding system for an open type ferry

Chapter · September 2015

DOI: 10.1201/b18855-63

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Design of LNG storage and feeding system for an open type ferry
G. Theotokatos*, G.A. Livanos, S. Dimitrellou, E. Strantzali, D.-N. Pagonis, K. Politis,
A. Theodoulides
Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Egaleo, Athens, Greece
*Currently at University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

D. Peirounakis, P. Mizithras
Hellenic Register of Shipping, Piraeus, Greece

ABSTRACT: The paper focuses on the conversion and in specific on the design of the LNG system of a dou-
ble-ended open type ferry operating at short distance routes in the area of east Mediterranean Sea to accommo-
date the LNG fuel operation. The design of the LNG storage and feeding system was carried out based on a
compilation of relevant regulations from various resources. The selection of main system components along
with their characteristics and basic functionality are presented and discussed. In addition the coupled heat
transfer and structural analysis of the LNG piping operating at cryogenic temperature levels was performed
and its results are analysed, providing insight to the involved processes. Finally, the CFD analysis of the re-
quired evaporator unit was carried out and the results are presented for delineating the physical phenomena
occurring in this component.

1 INTRODUCTION liquid fuels. In particular, the NOx and CO2 emis-

Recent years the maritime legislation has become
more stringent regarding the nitrogen oxides, sul-
phur oxides and carbon dioxide emissions from
ships. Special areas designated as Emission Control
Areas, have been already defined and planned to be
further expanded. Traditional marine propulsion
plants based on Diesel engines running on Heavy
Fuel Oil cannot meet the environmental require-
ments in Emission Control Areas (ECAs) (Livanos
et al. 2012), whilst running with lighter low sulphur
fuels (either Marine Diesel Oil or Gas Oil) with
0.1% sulphur content can comply with the SOx
regulations within ECAs (IMO 2015a). However,
for complying with NOX Tier III levels, which is re-
quired for operation within ECAs (IMO 2015b),
techniques like Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR)
or Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) as well as natu-
ral gas usage need to be employed.
The demand for low emission ships has lead ship-
ping community to exploit natural gas as an alterna-
tive fuel supply. Natural gas is a hydrocarbon gas
mixture, consisting primarily of methane (CH4) and
is considered to be the cleanest fossil fuel. It produc-
es less carbon dioxide and fewer other pollutants per
mass of burnt fuel than the commonly used marine
sions are reduced by about 85% and 25%-30% re-
spectively; the former due to the lean burn concept
employed and the latter due to the natural gas low
carbon to hydrogen ratio (Livanos et al. 2012). After
liquefaction, natural gas is separated from sulphur
concentrations which reduce SOx emissions to zero.
Additionally gas engines exhibit very low particulate
emissions, no visible smoke and no sludge deposits.
Furthermore the advanced extraction processes and
the discovery of new deposits worldwide has made
natural gas an attractive source of energy.
Liquefying natural gas by cooling it down to
-163oC results to a considerable reduction of its vol-
ume, which makes it ideal for transportation (greater
fuel density, lower storage weight). Liquefied Natu-
ral Gas (LNG) has been transported for many years
by using LNG carriers. In recent years, LNG infra-
structure has developed to use LNG as a fuel for
propulsion and auxiliary power generation also for
other ship types, like Ro-Ro and smaller RO-PAX
ferries.
In Greek territory, there is a number of 45 double-
ended open type ferries that operate daily on short
distance routes connecting the inland to islands.
Considering the fact that they use four stroke diesel
engines for propulsion and electrical energy genera-
tion, LNG is considered as an attractive fuel alterna-
tive.
Furthermore, the significant infrastructure in
terms of pipeline projects and LNG terminals that
have been developed, are under development or
have been proposed in the region of east Mediterra-
nean, makes LNG also a viable solution for Greek
ships. In specific, four gas transport and trading pro-
jects (Gurbanov 2014, Article 2011, Article 2013),
namely Nabucco, the Interconnector Turkey-Greece-
Italy (ITGI), the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and
the South East Europe Pipeline (SEEP) are ongoing.
Moreover, the existing Greek import terminal with
current LNG storage capacity of 130,000 m3 and two
proposed Greek import terminals with LNG storage
capacities of 285,000 m3 can provide adequate ca-
pacity to suffice the required LNG amount for the
Greek coastal shipping.
2 RETROFITING OF LNG SYSTEM IN AN
OPEN TYPE FERRY
In this work, the retrofitting of an open type double-
ended Ro-Ro ferry is investigated to render the us-
age of LNG instead of the typical MGO fuel. The
typical operating scenario of this ship includes the
following: distance per leg of 20 nm, operation 6
days per week, 5 voyages per day, total daily voyage
duration of 540 min. The ship is equipped with four
high speed marine diesel engines; two engines are
used at each voyage leg. Each engine has the follow-
ing characteristics at the Maximus Continuous Rat-
ing (MCR) point: brake power of 1050 kW; rota-
tional speed of 1200 rpm; and brake specific fuel
consumption of 207 g/kWh.
The proposed LNG fuel system consists of the
following main units:
 Two LNG storage tanks, comprising of IMO type
C pressure vessels with two shells of stainless
steel A304L and vacuum insulation.
 Piping system for the LNG and the evaporated
natural gas feeding the ship dual fuel engines.
 Evaporator unit and heating system that converts
LNG to natural gas at appropriate, so that it can
be used by the engines.
 Gas valve units that control and ensures the re-
quired gas pressure level.
 The connection to the converted dual fuel en-
gines.
2.1 Machinery location due to safety regulations
For the location of the LNG storage tanks and ma-
chinery, the International Maritime Organization
safety rules, (IMO 2009), have been employed. Ac-
cording to them, gas storage tanks can be located ei-
ther on open deck or in enclosed spaces. For a LNG
piping system employing at a maximum pressure
level of 10 bar, it is acceptable to install the storage
tanks in enclosed spaces. In this case, the tanks must
be placed as close to the centreline as possible, so as
to restrain stability issues that might appear. The
minimum distance that the storage tank can be
placed should be the lesser of B/5 (B is the ship
breath) or 11.5m from the ship side, the lesser of
B/15 and 2m from the bottom plating and not less
than 760 mm from the shell plating. Furthermore, if
the tank space is adjacent to machinery space, a cof-
ferdam of at least 900 mm should be used between
these spaces.
In the case of LNG tanks installation on an open
deck, a distance of at least B/5 from the ship side
and open decks should be used for assuring suffi-
cient natural ventilation and preventing the accumu-
lation of escaped gas in case of a leakage. The tanks
must also be fitted with drip trays, which need to be
installed underneath the tank and should be of suffi-
cient capacity to contain the volume that could es-
cape in the event of a pipe connection failure.
Considering the safety regulations and the investi-
gated ferry available spaces shown in Figure 1, the
installation of the tanks within an enclosed space in-
side the lower deck and underneath the vehicle side
ramps on the main deck was rejected, as the mini-
mum required distances cannot be obtained. The on-
ly available space to install the LNG tanks that satis-
fy the safety requirements is on the vessel open
deck. Therefore, the design of specially constructed
metallic platform next to the after castle of the ship,
as shown in Figure 2, was proposed. In this way the
distance from the LNG tanks to the ship side is
6.36 m and satisfies the restriction of the minimum
required safety distance of B/5 (i.e. 19.4/5=3.88 m).
Provided the vessel dimensions, the length and
breadth of the metallic platform are estimated to
16.5 m and 9 m, respectively whereas the vertical
distance from the main deck was found to be 5.43 m.
Figure 1. Alternative spaces for installing the LNG storage
tanks.

Figure 2. Proposed LNG tanks installation on a metallic plat-
form at the vessel aft.
The proposed solution including the LNG tanks
and platform are shown in Figures 1 and 2. The plat-
form plating will have thickness equal to 10 mm; the
weight of the required stiffeners for the platform has
been estimated to increase the weight of the platform
by 50%. The structural design of this platform is out
of the scope of the present paper. The docking sta-
tion and the evaporator unit that are required for the
maintenance and preparation of evaporated natural
gas will also be installed on the platform. The dock-
ing station, is a modularised unit where the LNG
tanks are connected simultaneously to the on board
gas system. It will be placed permanently and rigidly
fastened on the metallic platform. Drip trays will be
installed under the hose connections between the
LNG tanks and the docking station, in order to pre-
vent possible LNG leaks from damaging the deck.
2.2 Alternative LNG tank arrangements
Considering the available space on the platform, the
specific LNG tank design (fixed dimensions and
volume), which was estimated in (Theotokatos et al.
2014), and the ship operating profile, three alterna-
tive arrangements with one, two or three LNG stor-
age tanks were investigated. For selecting the most
preferred solution, the ship stability and range were
used as criteria. The additional loads of the LNG
tanks and required machinery were accounted result-
ing in a different lightship and weight distribution
for each case. In all three cases the displacement of
the vessel, as well as, the maximum draft are re-
tained fixed (Δ=2635.67 t, T=2.65 m) and intact sta-
bility calculations were conducted in order to verify
the deadweight and pay load for each case.
The weight of the required components were es-
timated based on the size, material and previous ex-
perience as follows; the docking station and evapo-
rator unit weights were assumed to be 3000 kg,
each; the weight of storage tank (empty) was taken
as 20,940 kg; the weight of the tank cassette was es-
timated to 1000 kg; and the weight of stored LNG
per tank was taken as 14,400 kg.
The ship will also use MGO; this is the used fuel
when the engines operate at the diesel mode, where-
as MGO is used as pilot fuel when the engines oper-
ate at the DF mode. However, for the ship stability
calculations, only the fore and after daily diesel oil
fuel tanks were considered full. The weight of fuel
contained in each daily tank was considered
19,600 kg. The results of the intact-stability analysis
are summarised in Table 1.
The pay load of the ship includes a weight of
45.12 t for 602 passenger evenly distributed on the
sun and upper deck and cars’ weight of 648.5 t,
586.0 t and 505.0 t respectively for each case dis-
tributed on platform, main and lower garage.
The required stability criteria are met for all the
investigated cases. However, in order to comply
with the necessary intact-stability criteria, ballasted
(liquid & solid) conditions have been also calculat-
ed. For the case with one installed LNG tank, the
ship payload was the greatest. However, only one
tank seems to be inadequate to provide the required
fuel capacity. As a result, the case with two installed
LNG tanks was preferred as a compromise between
the maximum pay load, voyage range and bunkering
period.
The two installed LNG storage tanks provide ship
autonomy of 5.5 days and additionally an amount of
10% LNG needed for keeping the tank internal sur-
face temperature low, which is required for avoiding
excessive boil off during bunkering .
2.3 Portable LNG tank containers
Due to the fact that there is no available space in the
ferry to install a bunkering station, the portable LNG
containers solution has been chosen instead of per-
manent LNG tanks, as shown in Figure 3. These
containers can be transported by truck or by ship to
the nearest LNG terminal for refilling and loaded
back on the docking station of the vessel by the port
derrick (Byggmästar & Karlsson 2013).
Table 1: Intact stability analysis results
No of LNG Lightship Deadweight Pay load
storage tanks (t) (t) (t)
1 1683.58 951.85 801.42
2 1704.37 930.85 753.32
3 1726.37 909.30 686.72

Figure 3. 3D image of the investigated ferry and LNG tank
containers.
2.4 General arrangement of machinery spaces
IMO defines two alternative system configurations
for the machinery spaces of gas fuelled ships, (IMO
2009). The first one is the gas-safe machinery space
in which the spaces are considered gas safe under
normal and abnormal conditions, as shown in Figure
4. The second is the emergency shutdown (ESD) –
protected machinery space that requires that in the
event of a gas hazard, all non-safe equipment (igni-
tion sources) and machinery is to be automatically
shut-down, shown in Figure 5.
Figure 4. Gas safe machinery room concept (Bond 2011).
Figure 5. ESD machinery room concept (Bond 2011).
Most of the LNG-fuelled vessels built recently are
designed according to the ESD design (Bond 2011).
The structure surrounding the hazardous components
(engines) is designed focused to minimize damage to
the vessel/structures in the event of an explosion,
thus each hazardous component is built within a
closed chamber continuously ventilated with gas de-
tection alarm systems (Esoy et al. 2011).
In most retrofit cases, including the investigated
ferry herein, the inherent gas safe machine type is
chosen. In this case the engine rooms are not re-
quired to be explosion-proof, and the engines do not
need to be individually located in a closed chamber
for gas leak containment. Fuel piping inside the en-
gine room should be completely enclosed by using a
tunnel pipe from the engine till the boundaries of the
engine room. Mechanically ventilated air in the an-
nular space needs to be provided and a gas leak de-
tection and removal system, which that leads the
leak gas in the atmosphere, should be installed. The
gas safe machine space approach reduces the con-
struction cost, system complexity and weight.
According to the Interim Guidelines on Safety for
natural gas fuelled engine installations on ships
(IMO 2009), every gas utilization unit must be
equipped with a Gas Valve Unit (GVU), so as to en-
sure a fast and reliable shutdown in normal condi-
tions or in case of an emergency. Each GVU con-
sists of two quick closing valves and a ventilation
valve in-between (Block and Bleed Valves), that
provide full redundancy as they are installed in se-
ries and in case of the loss of either power or air
supply, the pneumatically actuated blocking valves
will close whilst the ventilation valve (bleed valve)
will open.
The traditional concept usually adopted is to in-
stall the GVU into a separate room that will be gas
tight and considered as a zone 1 hazardous area
(Karlsson et al. 2013). This concept requires that all
electrical equipment has to be hazardous zone 1
compatible. In addition, airlock is required between
the GVU room and the surrounding space and the
recommended maximum distance from GVU to en-
gine is 10 m.
As these requirements are difficult to be fulfilled
for the ferry small engine room, the solution of GVU
in a containerised compact unit was selected, as pre-
sented in Figure 6. The unit has a gas tight enclosure
of stainless steel around the gas related equipment,
such as the valves, actuators and sensors, and will be
installed next to each engine, resulting to an easy
and cost-effective installation, which is optimal for
retrofitting cases.

Figure 6. Typical GVU in enclosure, (Karlsson et al. 2013).
3 DESIGN OF THE PIPING DISTRIBUTION
SYSTEM AND MACHINERY
The study and design of the LNG system were based
on regulations released from various organisations
including national legislation concerning RO-RO
passenger ships, European Union Directive (EC
98/18 EuroSolas), IMO Interim Guidelines and
standards for gas-fuelled ships published by classifi-
cation societies. The above were used in order to
provide the appropriate design options for the piping
(LNG and NG) and the machinery (materials, di-
mensions, insulation, supports, etc).
3.1 Natural gas feeding system
For the natural gas feeding system, there are some
safety requirements that must be fulfilled:
 The gas pipes should not be located less than 760
mm from the ship side.
 Gas fuel piping should not be installed through
accommodation or services spaces and control
stations.
 Where gas pipes pass through enclosed spaces,
they should be enclosed in air ducts or double
wall piping should be employed.
 For the purpose of isolating damaged sections,
stop valves should be fitted at least every 40 m or
the system may be divided into two or more sec-
tions with control valves, located in a safe and
readily accessible position not likely to be cut-off
in case of fire.
The natural gas piping consists of four individual
pipes from the evaporator unit on the platform to the
four dual fuel engines (two at each engine room).
The location of the evaporator unit just above the af-
ter engine room results to two vertical NG pipelines
of small length. The other two NG pipes are in-
stalled horizontally through the platform deck, right
over the vehicle side ramp and underneath the ac-
commodation deck and then are directed downwards
vertically to the fore engine room, as shown in Fig-
ure 7.
Inside each engine room (gas-safe machinery
space), the natural gas piping has to be completely
enclosed by a double walled pipe thorough the entire
route from the boundaries of the room till the
boundaries of each GVU and from the GVU outlets
to the inlets of the DF engines. Dual walled piping
with ventilated air will also be used for all the piped
installed between the platform deck evaporator unit
and the engine room for ensuring increased safety.
The proposed piping system is shown in Figures 8a
and 8b.
The gas pipe calculations were carried out accord-
ing to ANSI/ASME standards, (ANSI/ASME 2002)
and additionally assuming that the maximum flow
rate required to feed one engine operating at its
MCR load (1050 kW) was equal to 200 kg/h. The
selected material was stainless steel A304L 40S. The
pipe nominal diameter and wall thickness were cal-
culated at 65 mm and 5.16 mm, respectively.
The pressure drop (Δp) due to friction and fittings
resistance is taken into account by considering the
following equation that applies for compressible
fluid when the pressure drop is lower than 30% of
the initial pressure:
(1)
where 1 denotes the evaporator unit outlet.
Figure 7. Pipelines at platform deck.
The gas density required in the above equation
was estimated by using the pressure and temperature
of the gas at the evaporator unit outlet. Σk depends
on the installed components of the pipeline (valves,
fittings and elbows, etc) and their resistance coeffi-
cients were taken from international standards and
handbooks (ANSI/ASME 2003, Perry & Green
1997). The friction coefficient was calculated by us-
ing the Colebrook equation as a function of Reyn-
olds number and the relative roughness.
The calculated total pressure drop for each pipe-
line was lower than 100 mbar, satisfying the mini-
mum pressure drop requirement of 0.4 bar for NG
piping system category 4 (1-4 bar according to
Parikos 2009), ensuring that the LNG tank operating
pressure of 6 bars will be enough to provide the in-
jection pressure of 3.5 bar required for the installed
DF engines and the pressure loss in piping system
downstream of tank.
(a)
(b)
Figure 8 (a) Pipelines at lower deck (after engine room); (b)
Pipelines at lower deck (fore engine room).
For each pipeline, the space between the inner and
outer pipe of the double-walled gas pipe will ac-
commodate ventilated air under pressure, having a
capacity of at least 30 air changes per hour. This air
will be discarded to the open air by a ventilation fan,
located at the beginning of each pipeline after the
evaporator unit. The ventilation fan comprises of a
filter and a demister unit, and should include a wa-
terproof protection cover ensuring protection over
ingression of water and solid particles.
3.2 LNG piping
The material selected for the LNG pipes was the
stainless steel A304L 40S, which is appropriate for
cryogenic applications. ANSI/ASME guidelines
(ANSI/ASME 2002) were also considered for the
performed calculations. The piping system design
mass flow rate was estimated to 400 kg/h that corre-
sponds to the simultaneous operation of two engines
at 100% load. The pipes nominal diameter and wall
thickness were calculated at 20 mm and 2.77 mm,
respectively.
At nominal conditions, it is assumed that saturated
LNG flows from the LNG tank containers to the
evaporator unit at -135oC. The LNG pipe is of dou-
ble walled type pipe with vacuum insulation in the
annulus space and interstitial vanes to support and
centralize the inner pipe placed internally of the out-
er pipe. Vacuum insulation is quite efficient effec-
tive for cryogenic applications. The associated heat
transfer coefficient depends on the properties of the
medium occupying the vacuum space (temperature
and density). Fixed supports (saddles) that fasten the
pipe onto the ship structure are also used installed in
a distance of 1.5 m between them.
As the LNG pipe is located onto the platform,
which is an exposed part of the ship, it will be sub-
jected to thermal radiation from/to the environment
and natural convection by the surrounded air. In ad-
dition, heat is transferred through conduction via the
supporting saddles of the pipe. The thermal loads,
applied to the outer pipe, will be transmitted to the
internal pipe through the insulation of the annulus
space and the interstitial supports.
Besides the thermal loads, the construction is un-
der structural loads as well. These include the pres-
sure loads due to the external ambient pressure, the
annulus pressure, the internal pressure of the inner
pipe, the self weight of the pipe and the fixed sad-
dles. The study performed herein was based on the
following conditions: ambient pressure of 1 bar,
vacuum pressure of 0.1 bar and internal pressure of
6 bar. The pipe weight was also added as a structural
load.
A finite element method was used to perform the
steady-state thermal and static structural analysis by
employing the ANSYS software. The mesh model of
the LNG pipe was mainly constructed by using a tri-
angular surface mesher. The derived simulation re-
sults including the LNG pipe temperature and stress
distribution are presented in Figures 9 and 10. The
maximum stress of 400 MPa occurs at the contact
points of the 6 interstitial vanes to the outer pipe and
it is much lower than the permitted tensile strength
of St A304L (1506.8 MPa at -173.15oC).

Figure 9. Calculated temperature distribution for the LNG pipe.
Figure 10. Calculated stress distribution for the LNG pipe.
3.3 Evaporator and heating system
The purpose of the LNG evaporator is to vaporise
the LNG stored in the tank liquefied natural gas, so
that it can be employed by the Gas utilization unit.
Usually the temperature of the supplied gas into the
engines must be between 5oC and 40oC with most
typical values around 20oC. For operation under
transient conditions, the solution of boil off gas re-
ceived from the top of the tank is additionally con-
sidered. The nominal conditions that were employed
for this study are provided in Figure 11: saturated
LNG at 6 bar and -135oC enters the evaporator,
whereas the gas provided to the engine feeding sys-
tem should be at a temperature of 20 oC. The evapo-
rator is considered to operate whenever the engine is
running on DF mode. Automatic valves are installed
on the inlet and outlet sides of the evaporator and
control the fuel feed to the engines.
The machinery that transfers the required heat to
LNG by circulating an appropriate heating medium
is the glycol-water (GW) unit. The heating medium
that is used is a mixture of 50% ethylene-glycol and
water (EGW), which is assumed entering the evapo-
rator at 50oC. It flow is controlled appropriately, so
that EGW exits the evaporator unit at -15oC. This
fluid has excellent properties at both high and low
temperatures, which means it can be also used as an-
ti-freezer. Because of its high safety level and the
relatively low associated operational risks and costs,
it is the most used heat transfer fluid in marine ap-
plications.
In order for the EGW to increase its temperature
back to 55oC, the engine fresh cooling water is used.
Under nominal conditions, the fresh water enters the
GW unit at a temperature of 91oC, which corre-
sponds to the conditions at the engine outlet, and ex-
its the GW unit (returning to the engine) at the lower
permitted temperature of 83oC. The GW unit will be
installed at the after engine room as shown in Figure
8a.
The pressure built-up unit (PBU) controls the
pressure inside the tank and compensates for pres-
sure losses as fuel is fed to the engines. It is a heat
exchanger that vaporizes LNG and redirects it back
into the storage tank. PBU is switched on whenever
the pressure in the tank drops below a predetermined
level and it is integrated within the LNG tank con-
tainer.
For this work, the following nominal values were
considered: LNG entering the evaporator at -135°C,
gas exiting the evaporator at 20°C, LNG mass flow
rate of 400 kg/h, evaporator heat transfer rate of
60 kW, EGW enters the evaporator at 50oC and ex-
its at -15°C at a mass flow rate of 0.32 kg/s.
Figure 11. A typical diagram showing the nominal conditions
at LNG evaporation/heating system components.
A shell and tube heat exchanger type was selected
for the evaporator unit design. The following equa-
tions were employed for calculating the evaporator
unit main particulars:
(2)
(3)
(4)
T  Tc ,o   Th ,o  Tc ,i 
lm  h ,i
(5)
 Th ,i  Tc ,o 
ln  

 Th , o  Tc ,i 
where L is the required total tube length; di,do,dm are
the inner, outer and mean tube diameters, respective-
ly; N is the number of tubes; U is the overall heat
transfer coefficient for combined convection and
conduction; h1 and h2 are the average convection co-
efficients of saturated EGW and LNG, respectively; choice of 10 tubes and 7 passes results to an outer
k is the pipe material thermal conductivity; ΔΤ is the shell of small dimensions, in specific 1.7 m in
mean logarithmic temperature difference; and Th,i, length, 1.22 m in width and 1.04 m in height, which
Th,o, Tc,i, Tc,o are the temperatures of EGW and LNG is an appropriate size for installation on the platform.
at the inlet and outlet.
Based on the above equations, the following par-
ticulars were calculated for the nominal operating 4 CONCLUSIONS
case. Saturated LNG enters the heat exchanger
through a pipe of 20 mm internal diameter and then In this paper, the design of the LNG storage,
it distributed to tubes of 0.04 m internal diameter. evaporation and feeding system was studied for the
The unit consists of banks of 10 tubes arranged hori- case of an open type ferry to convert her to a LNG
zontally and 7 passages arranged vertically with 10 fuelled vessel. Regulations from various sources
cm horizontal and vertical distance between the were reviewed and the best design practices were
tubes and the passes. The total tube length is 7.5 m. applied to select and size the components of the in-
The EGW inlet and outlet pipes are located on the vestigated system. In addition, a coupled heat trans-
upper and lower side of the shell, having a diameter fer-structural study was performed for the selected
of 10 cm. The whole unit will be constructed of LNG piping and the design followed by a CFD anal-
stainless steel 304L. Based on the above characteris- ysis was carried out for the system evaporator unit.
tics, a shell and tube heat exchanger model in The main finding of this work can be summarised as
ANSYS was developed as it is presented in Figure follows
12. Two portable containerised LNG storage tanks in-
To investigate the evaporator unit steady state be- stalled on an metallic platform at the ship aft is the
haviour, a computational analysis was performed us- preferred solution as it facilitated the compliance to
ing the CFD commercial code ANSYS Fluent. At in- the class rules, allows for the required ship stability
let conditions a stable temperature and mass flow with no reduction at the ship payload and compro-
rate were set for the LNG. The LNG flow was simu- mises between the voyage range and bunkering time.
lated using the K-epsilon turbulence model. For the The emergency shutdown (ESD) protected ma-
outlet connections, the pressure boundary and mass chinery concept modular GVUs was used for ensur-
flow rate conditions were specified. The pressure at ing a gas safe engine room as t offers a low conver-
the LNG inlet is assumed to be the same as the pres- sion cost and reduced installation complexity.
sure maintained inside the LNG storage tank (i.e.
6 bar), whilst the pressure at the gas outlet was con-
sidered to be at a pressure level that ensures the gas
entrance to the engine at 4.5 bar taking into account
the gas feeding system pressure drop. The tube wall
was set as a nonslip and coupled. The average con-
vection coefficient for the tube outer surface was
calculated by assuming EGW properties at the mean
calculated temperature. The average convection co-
efficient for the tube inner surface was calculated by
assuming LNG properties and a boiling off process.
For the nonlinear solution, the least-squares cell
based method, presto analysis for pressure and first- Figure 12. The developed shell and tube heat exchanger
model.
order upwind analysis for momentum and turbulent
energy were selected.
The mesh model of the LNG fluid, constructed by
tetrahedral elements, and the calculated temperature
distribution are shown in Figures 13 and 14, respec-
tively. The calculated velocities inside the evapora-
tor unit tubes were lower than 15 m/s that is the
maximum allowed velocity for the examined case.
Using EGW as the heating medium, that has excel-
lent properties at low temperatures, the required
mass flow rate and the specified LNG inlet tempera- Figure 13: Mesh of the evaporator model.
ture and NG outlet temperature are fulfilled. The

Figure 14: Calculated temperature distribution of the evapo-
rator.
Double walled gas pipes will be used with venti-
lated air in the annulus space for ensuring gas free
operation of the pipes and the engine room spaces.
The selected LNG pipe design that includes dou-
ble walled pipe with vacuum insulation and intersti-
tial supports ensure stresses much lower than the
maximum permitted and effective insulation with
uniform distribution of temperatures.
A compact evaporator unit that satisfies all the set
requirements and can be installed on the platform
along with the LNG storage tank was also proposed.
tive Engineers of Japan, Inc., JSAE 20119212, SAE 2011-
01-1998.
Gurbanov, I., 2014. Implications of the demise of South Stream
for southern gas corridor, Posted in Strategic Outlook, De-
cember 2014.
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safety for natural gas-fuelled engine installations in ships,
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%E2%80%93-Regulation-14.aspx
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%E2%80%93-Regulation-13.aspx
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5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is conducted in the framework of the pro-

ject LNG COMSHIP (Greek General Secretariat of
Research and Technology Code: 12CHN400), which
is funded by the European Regional Development
Fund (ERDF) and National Resources.

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