Impact of Wind and Sea Loadings on the Voyage of All-Electric Ship

Abstract

An all-electric ship (AES) generally employs integrated electric propulsion and coordinated onboard power supply to achieve economically efficient and environmentally sustainable maritime transportation. This article aims to evaluate the impact of wind and sea loadings on AES voyage performance and economic efficiency using a deterministic single-stage optimization model. The proposed multiobjective model optimizes total operating cost (TOC) and voyage unmet distance while satisfying navigation, propulsion, and electrical operating constraints. Wind and wave loads are modeled using analytical and semi-empirical wind-based resistance models to assess the resulting changes in propulsion power demand and attainable sailing speed. The optimization method is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problem and solved using the MATLAB built-in intlinprog solver. Tradeoffs between conflicting objectives are analyzed through the Pareto front of the obtained nondominated solutions. The simulation results demonstrate that wind and wave loads significantly influence AES operation by increasing ship resistance, which in turn affects propulsion power demand.