Environment
New mathematical methods driving the energy transition in the maritime transport sector
Date:
Changed on 22/10/2024
Maritime transport is currently responsible for 3% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Limiting its energy and environmental footprint is a major challenge facing the sector, which has made a commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 70% compared to 2008 levels, and which is seeking to be carbon neutral by 2050. If these ambitious targets are to be met, the maritime industry will need to step up its efforts to accelerate its energy transition. This is the aim behind “MATritime”, a laboratory created jointly by Bañulsdesign, the CNRS, the École Polytechnique and Inria. Funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), MATritime was set up to support the transition in the maritime sector through the pooling of expertise and skills.
Physical and statistical models for use in ship design
Multiple factors contribute to the loss of energy by cargo ships out at sea, including the complexity of the ships themselves and the materials used in their construction, plus the difficulty of predicting how they will behave at sea and how they will cope with meteorological phenomena (currently responsible for a standard deviation of between 15 and 50% of energy use depending on the severity of conditions), as well as hazards specific to the marine environment. There are also uncertainties inherent to the methods of propulsion that will be used in the future, including wind and hydrogen.
Headed up by Olivier Le Maître, director of research at the CNRS and member of PLATON (a joint project team involving the CNRS, Inria and the École Polytechnique), MATritime is seeking to develop a holistic model of all of the relevant uncertainties (environmental, characterisation, building modelling, etc.), beginning with the design process and continuing throughout a boat’s entire lifespan. Drawing on advanced digital simulation technology combining physical and statistical models, the laboratory will devise digital methods capable of being applied at different steps along the journey to carbon neutrality:
- in the short term, optimising the components used in existing ships
- in the medium term, the robust design of conventional ships
- long-term, the robust design of ships employing new methods of propulsion
Running parallel to this, the project will also explore the creation of digital twins of ships, incorporating data measured at sea in order to optimise models used to predict ship performance, the overarching objective being to support the digitalisation of the maritime industry while preparing future tools for operational problems (e.g. optimising routes, maintenance operations, and so on). By bringing together researchers in mathematics with naval architects, MATritime is hoping that this multidisciplinarity will enable them to contribute towards making the maritime industry greener, more sustainable and more robust.
© Inria / B. Fourrier
From left to right in the photo : Melchior Faure, Development officer for CNRS joint laboratories / Dominique Rossin, Director of Teaching and Research École polytechnique / Renaud Bañuls, Founder and CEO, Bañulsdesign / Jean-Yves Berthou, Director of Inria's Saclay center and Deputy Director General of Inria's site policy / Dominique Dunon-Bluteau, Director of Scientific Operations ANR
Verbatim
The CNRS is delighted at the launch of the laboratory MATritime alongside Bañulsdesign and our academic partners. Geared towards supporting the transition in maritime transportation, this new public-private partnership is very much in line with our strategy for tackling the major challenges facing society. The CNRS has more than 275 active laboratories with companies on a wide range of research topics, providing essential support for innovation and the transfer of science to society.
Auteur
Poste
Development officer for CNRS joint laboratories
Verbatim
The ANR is very excited about the launch of “MATritime”, a laboratory bringing together Inria, the CNRS, the École Polytechnique and Bañulsdesign to support the maritime industry with its energy transition. This is very much in keeping with the ANR’s LabCom funding programme, the aim of which is to support innovation by fostering research partnerships between the public and private sector in order to make them more competitive and better equipped to tackle the challenges of the energy transition.
Auteur
Poste
Director of Scientific Operations at the ANR
Verbatim
The École Polytechnique is very excited about this fruitful collaboration between our team Platon (a joint undertaking with Inria and the CNRS), which does remarkable work on quantifying uncertainties in digital models and optimisation, and Bañulsdesign, a company with an established reputation in naval architecture and marine engineering. This is a major project seeking to address the challenges currently facing the maritime industry, including decarbonisation and autonomation. Controlling the level of uncertainty and risk will require the creation of digital tools for the design, monitoring and operation of ships so as to be able to increase the precision of both static and dynamic models. The École Polytechnique wants this to be a flagship project when it comes to modelling and predicting hazards in marine environments and decision-support.
Auteur
Poste
Director of Teaching and Research at the École Polytechnique, Vice-President of Teaching at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris
Verbatim
Working together to tackle both scientific and industrial challenges, laboratories bringing together research teams and private stakeholders are central to our policy on innovation. We firmly support these partnerships with companies which create jobs in France and make a difference to our region. MATritime will help to make even more of a difference given that we will be working hand-in-hand with our partners to help decarbonise transport. We are particularly proud to be a part of this joint laboratory and eagerly anticipate the results.
Auteur
Poste
Directeur général délégué à l’innovation d'Inria
Based at the École Polytechnique’s Centre for Applied Mathematics, the project team Platon is a joint undertaking involving the CNRS, the École Polytechnique and Inria. Created in 2020, Platon is comprised of 3 permanent researchers and around a dozen PhD students and postdoctoral researchers carrying out research on dealing with uncertainty in scientific computing for use in engineering and simulation. Their expertise ranges from modelling uncertainty and decision-making to sensitivity analysis, model calibration and the relevant aspects of algorithms and high-performance computing. Platon has a number of partnerships in both the industrial (ArianeGroup, 3DS, Essilor, Framatome, Bañulsdesign) and public spheres (ONERA, DLR, CEA, BRGM, VKI, ESA), while its permanent researchers have a strong network of academic collaborations with universities such as Stanford, Duke, KAUST, MIT, Politecnico Milano, UCL and Zurich.
Bañulsdesign is a VSB founded by Renaud Bañuls in 2009 which specialises in naval architecture for sailboats, with a particular emphasis on racing sailboats (winner of the 33rd America’s Cup with the BMW Oracle team, designed the Sodebo Ultim 3 32-metre long Ultim trimaran and optimised the French Olympic catamaran for the Tokyo games). Over the past few years Bañulsdesign has also provided its expertise in the maritime industry to leading firms such as BV Solutions and CMA CGM, helping them to optimise their ships and their routes. Bañulsdesign was also behind the creation of “Share the Ocean”, a consortium set up to help prevent collisions with marine megafauna, alongside the observatory PELAGIS (La Rochelle University / CNRS).
Find out more
- Article in the newspaper Le Monde "COP27 : le fret maritime est l’un des plus grands émetteurs de CO2, et il tarde à changer de cap"
- The ANR’s LabCom programme
