Research Projects
AP&A Group invests in research and development and cooperates with strategic industrial, academic partners and institutions or cutting edge technical projects. These are undertaken at a UK, European and International level including partners such as University of Strathclyde, Caledonian Macbrayne, Danaos, Lloyds Register and Jumbo Shipping amongst many others. In addition, we work closely with Newcastle University Alumni Association and industry trade bodies.
SEAHORSE – Safety Enhancements in transport by Achieving Human Orientated Resilient Shipping Environment, is a leap forward towards shipping safety achieved through technology transfer from air transport to maritime transport focusing on human factors problems in an innovative, integrated and multidisciplinary manner towards safer and more resilient shipping operations.
The SEAHORSE project tackles this challenge by bringing together an experienced, diverse and committed consortium from the air and maritime transport sectors to facilitate the transfer of proven resilience engineering methods.
The SEAHORSE project’s aim will be realised through the implementation of the following objectives:
The SEAHORSE concept has the potential to create a significant impact, in making ship operations safer and more resilient.
Find out more: www.seahorseproject.eu
INCASS -Inspection Capabilities for Enhanced Ship Safety – solution for efficient monitoring and ship inspections.
The INCASS project is funded by the European Union and brings together a range of experienced and dedicated partners from 7 European Countries.
The consortium’s objective is to bring innovative solutions to the ship inspection regime through:
– Introduction of enhanced inspection of ship structures based on robotic platforms (Drone and Magnetic Crawler)
– Providing ship structures and machinery monitoring with real time information using ‘intelligent’ sensors and incorporate Structural and Machinery Risk Analysis
– Introducing Condition Based inspection tools and methodologies, reliability and criticality based maintenance, providing an enhanced Central Database including ship structures and machinery available to maritime authorities (e.g. EMSA, Port State Control), Classification Societies and ship operators and eventually by developing a Decision Support System for ship structures and machinery for continuous monitoring and risk analysis and management of ship operations.
Project Outcomes:
• Risk-based framework for ship structures and machinery inspection
• Condition Based maintenance assessment and scheduling
• Central automated database for ship structures and machinery
• Structural and machinery Decision Support Platform
• Practical Guidelines freely available to the maritime community for inspection and risk management
Find out more: www.incass.eu
ISEMMS Project – Integrated Ship Energy & Maintenance Management System
The ISEMMS project aims at the development of an integrated energy and maintenance management system to optimise the energy efficiency and minimise the maintenance cost of ship machinery systems by monitoring of the performance, emissions and plant condition parameters, culminating in proposing the most effective energy and maintenance scheduling.
A number of advanced technologies including model based power management and fault diagnosis, condition/performance/emissions parameters monitoring, machinery vibration monitoring, infrared radiation and fluid analysis, multi-criteria optimisation techniques and machinery risk analysis will be combinatory used. Data acquisition will be integrated with the ship control systems and the acquired ‘big’ data will be analysed using statistical and artificial intelligence algorithms and transferred ashore using satellite communications providing decision support and advise for optimal operation/adjustment of the system parameters and the most effective maintenance scheduling.
The ISEMMS system development will lead to a significant improvement in the vessels energy efficient operation and the reduction of the operational cost.
ISEMMS project is a research collaboration between industry and academia, aiming to provide a novel solution in designing an Integrated Ship Energy and Maintenance Management System (ISEMMS). The ISEMMS project consortium includes AP&A Group, Lloyd’s Register, Prisma Electronics and the University of Strathclyde. The project is partially funded by Innovate UK. Find out more: www.isemms.net
SAFEMODE project – the main aim of this project is to develop a novel Human Risk Informed Design (HURID) framework in order to identify, collect and assess data from Human Factors. Strengthening synergies between Aviation and maritime in the area of human Factors towards achieving more Efficient and resilient MODE of transportation.
Maritime Education for Energy Efficiency (MarEd) project – aims to define gaps in energy efficiency knowledge in the shipping industry and create distance learning modules to train staff including seafarers and shorebased personnel.
Maritime Health Trainings for Seafarers and Doctors (MariHEALTH) project – brings an innovative approach to health training programmes for seafarers and maritime doctors.
The project is developing a unique online training course under a web-based e-learning/training platform, which also provides evaluation of the medical knowledge of seafarers and maritime doctors.
Maritime Health Trainings for Seafarers and Doctors – ERASMUS+ KA2 – Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) project.
The AP&A Group is pleased to announce that with their partners, the University of Strathclyde’s Department of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering (NAOME) and the support of the UK Innovate KTP programme, they have successfully developed a new diagnostic system for the real time monitoring of ship machinery.
The diagnostic system is based on a novel algorithm using artificial intelligence and machine learning to continuously monitor and asses the condition of machinery, understand deterioration and provide a continuously updated estimate of remaining life, giving shipowners and operators the information they need to make informed decisions about maintenance and repairs, monitoring the ship systems’ reliability and performance.
The system can be applied to any machinery system, the machine learning algorithm, monitoring the sensor data to build a model of the equipment and determine its condition and predicted remaining life.
An advantage of the system is that it is purely a software solution and only needs access to available data. It can therefore utilise data from any existing vessel sensors, monitoring and automation systems and is fully scalable across different equipment.
This state of the art diagnostic tool gives shipowners and operators the accurate real time information they need to reduce maintenance and repair costs, whilst at the same time improving ship systems performance, availability, reliability and safety.
The system has been successfully tested using historic data and achieved the prestigious KTP Excellence Award in 2020.
The project is now moving to the final stage, with the system being installed on test vessels during 2021 to validate the performance in service.
