MIT Set of Maritime Consortium Sail | MIT News

Around 11 billion tons of goods, or around 1.5 tons per person worldwide, are transported by sea each year, representing approximately 90 percent of global trade per volume. Internationally, the commercial shipping fleet is around 110,000 ships. These ships and the ports that attend them are significant taxpayers to the local and global economy, and are important taxpayers to greenhouse gas emissions.

A new consortium, formalized in a signature ceremony at MIT last week, aims to address climatic emissions in the maritime maritime industry, while supporting efforts for the ecological operation of compliance with the decarbonization objectives established by the international maritime organization.

“This is a timely collaboration with the key stakeholders of the maritime industry with a very bold and interdisciplinary research agenda that will establish new technologies and standards based on evidence,” says Themis Sapsis, William Koch Mar Mar Mar Mar Professor at the MIT and the director of Mit's Center For Ocean Engineering. “Its objective is to bring the best of MIT in key areas for commercial shipping, such as nuclear technology for commercial environments, autonomous operation and IA methods, improved hydrodynamics and ship design, cybersecurity and manufacturing.”

Co-direct by SapSis and Fotini Christia, the International Professor of Social Sciences of Ford; Director of the Institute of Data, Systems and Society (IDSS); and director of the sociotechnical MIT Systems Research Center, the newly released MIT maritime consortium (MC) gathers the MIT collaborators of the entire campus, including the Oceanic Engineering Center, which is located in the Department of Mechanical Engineering; IDSS, which is located at MIT Schwarzman College of Computing; the departments of nuclear science and civil and environmental engineering; Mit Sea Grant; and others, with a national and international community of industry experts.

The founding members of the Maritime Consortium are the American Shipping Office (ABS), Clean Clean Energy Corp. Corp. and HD Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore engineering. Innovation members are the vision vision group, Maritime Partners LP, Singapore Maritime Institute and Dorian LPG.

“The challenges facing maritime industry are the challenges that no individual company or organization can address only,” says Christia. “The solution implies almost all disciplines of the School of Engineering, as well as the algorithms of ai and data, and politics and regulation, is a real problem of MIT.”

The researchers will explore new designs for nuclear systems consisting of the needs and technological limitations of commercial and environmental fuels of alternative fuels, new algorithms based on rigorous data and evaluation criteria for autonomous platform Manufacture of the on -board board. The collaborators will also advise on research priorities on evidence -based standards related to MIT's presidential priorities around climate, sustainability and ai.

MIT has been a leading center of research and design of ships for more than a century, and is widely recognized by contributions to hydrodynamics, structural mechanics and the dynamics of the ships, the design of the propellers and the general design of the ships, and its unique educational program for the US Navy officers, the Naval Construction and Engineering program. Today's research is at the forefront of Oceanic Science and Engineering, with significant efforts in fluid and hydrodynamic, acoustic, mechanics on the high seas, robotics and marine sensors, and detection and prognosis of the ocean. The academic house of the Consortium in the MIT also opens the door to the interdepartmental collaboration throughout the institute.

The MC will launch multiple research projects designed to address the challenges from a variety of angles, all united by avant -garde data analysis and calculation techniques. The collaborators will investigate new designs and methods that improve efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, explore the viability of alternative fuels and advance decision making, manufacturing and materials, hydrodynamic performance and data -based cyber safety.

“This consortium brings a powerful collection of important companies that, together, have the potential to be a global shipping shaper in itself,” says Christopher J. Wiernicki SM '85, President and Executive Director of ABS.

“The strength and uniqueness of this consortium are the members, who are world class organizations and real difference manufacturers. The ability to take advantage of the experience and knowledge of the members, together with the technological scope of the MIT, creates a fuel of real airplanes to boost progress,” says Wiernicki. “In addition to investigating key barriers, bottlenecks and knowledge gaps in the emission challenge, the consortium seeks to allow the development of the new technology and the innovation of policies that will be key. In the long term, the consortium expects to provide the gravity we will need to double the curve.”