A description of the objective

The overall objective is to improve the efficacy of marine transport and to improve the competitiveness of the Swedish ship-building industry. Development of four demonstrator objects is intended to show the potentials for cost-efficient and environmentally considerate building of boats and ships, by reducing  the weight of ships by 30 %, with unchanged performance, and with a total cost reduction (i.e. whole life cost) of 25 % less than today. These objectives are based on the total replacement of traditional materials in ship design by lightweight materials such as fibre‑reinforced polymer materials (composites) or aluminium.

The consortium behind the project consists of representatives from the Swedish shipping industry, the Swedish recreational craft industry, Swedish materials manufacturing industries, Swedish universities and research institutes, and public authorities and classification societies. In other words, large parts of Sweden's expertise in this area.  

The results will be capable of incorporation into new lightweight designs for vessels ranging from smaller boats to large ships, thus improving the efficiency of transport and reducing environmental impact. To achieve this requires the following activities: 

–  Information acquisition

Collection of marine-related standards, industrial trends, design methods, market analysis and production technology.

-  Concept studies

Concept design, constructional design, manufacture and analysis / trials of critical parts of four different lightweight-based ship designs.

-  LCA-LCC

Performance of life cycle analyses / life cycle cost calculations of different ship designs in order to evaluate the performance of different constructional materials. 

-  Design methodology

Development of a general methodology for the introduction of lightweight features in ships. 

-  Information dissemination

Transfer of the results from, and experience of, the project to the Swedish boatbuilding and shipbuilding industries. 

The work also includes development of proposals for submission to classification societies and IMO (International Maritime Organisation, www.imo.org), with the aim of amending classification rules that today retard the use of lightweight material at sea.