A LARGE liquefied hydrogen carrier developed by Kawasaki Heavy Industries has received approval in principle from Japanese ship classification society ClassNK.
According to Kawasaki Heavy Industries, the carrier is designed to transport cryogenic liquified hydrogen cooled to a temperature of negative 253 degrees Celsius.
The cargo is reduced to one eight-hundredth of its original volume to be shipped in larger quantities to help reduce hydrogen supply costs.
“In order to build this large-sized carrier, [we] leveraged design and shipbuilding technologies as well as safety-related technologies and knowledge utilised in the construction of the globally pioneering, 1250 cubic metre liquefied hydrogen carrier Suiso Frontier,” Kawasaki said.
Suiso Frontier is the world’s first liquefied hydrogen carrier, which docked at Victoria’s Port of Hastings following its maiden voyage from Japan in January this year.
Suiso Frontier was granted class registration by ClassNK, which also issued the AiP for the design of the cargo containment system on Kawasaki’s liquefied hydrogen carrier last year.
ClassNK has also issued an AiP for the cargo handling systems which are key design elements of the vessel.
The classification society also issued and AiP for the dual-fuel main boilers which use hydrogen boil-off gas as fuel.
[We] also examined the integrated design of a 160,000 cubic metre large liquefied hydrogen carrier equipped with four of the above-mentioned cargo containment systems and issued an AiP to confirm its feasibility as a ship,” ClassNK said.
It made its decision based on the three AiPs and the verification of the ship arrangement, hull structure and stability, the power generation and distribution system and the hydrogen fire protection and extinction philosophy.
“It is confirmed that large-scale hydrogen transportation with this design is possible to realise.”
ClassNK said it would continue to participate in advanced initiatives toward decarbonisation in the maritime industry by incorporating knowledge gained through collaboration with key players into its guidelines.
