Around 11 billion tons of products, or about 1.5 tons per person worldwide, are transported by sea annually, representing about 90 percent of worldwide trade by volume. Internationally, the merchant shipping fleet numbers around 110,000 vessels. These ships, and the ports that service them, are significant contributors to the local and global economy — they usually’re significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
A brand new consortium, formalized in a signing ceremony at MIT last week, goals to handle climate-harming emissions within the maritime shipping industry, while supporting efforts for environmentally friendly operation in compliance with the decarbonization goals set by the International Maritime Organization.
“It is a timely collaboration with key stakeholders from the maritime industry with a really daring and interdisciplinary research agenda that can establish latest technologies and evidence-based standards,” says Themis Sapsis, the William Koch Professor of Marine Technology at MIT and the director of MIT’s Center for Ocean Engineering. “It goals to bring the very best from MIT in key areas for industrial shipping, similar to nuclear technology for industrial settings, autonomous operation and AI methods, improved hydrodynamics and ship design, cybersecurity, and manufacturing.”
Co-led by Sapsis and Fotini Christia, the Ford International Professor of the Social Sciences; director of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS); and director of the MIT Sociotechnical Systems Research Center, the newly-launched MIT Maritime Consortium (MC) brings together MIT collaborators from across campus, including the Center for Ocean Engineering, which is housed within the Department of Mechanical Engineering; IDSS, which is housed within the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing; the departments of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering; MIT Sea Grant; and others, with a national and a global community of industry experts.
The Maritime Consortium’s founding members are the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), Capital Clean Energy Carriers Corp., and HD Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering. Innovation members are Foresight-Group, Navios Maritime Partners L.P., Singapore Maritime Institute, and Dorian LPG.
“The challenges the maritime industry faces are challenges that no individual company or organization can address alone,” says Christia. “The answer involves almost every discipline from the School of Engineering, in addition to AI and data-driven algorithms, and policy and regulation — it’s a real MIT problem.”
Researchers will explore latest designs for nuclear systems consistent with the techno-economic needs and constraints of economic shipping, economic and environmental feasibility of different fuels, latest data-driven algorithms and rigorous evaluation criteria for autonomous platforms within the maritime space, cyber-physical situational awareness and anomaly detection, in addition to 3D printing technologies for onboard manufacturing. Collaborators may even advise on research priorities toward evidence-based standards related to MIT presidential priorities around climate, sustainability, and AI.
MIT has been a number one center of ship research and design for over a century, and is well known for contributions to hydrodynamics, ship structural mechanics and dynamics, propeller design, and overall ship design, and its unique educational program for U.S. Navy Officers, the Naval Construction and Engineering Program. Research today is on the forefront of ocean science and engineering, with significant efforts in fluid mechanics and hydrodynamics, acoustics, offshore mechanics, marine robotics and sensors, and ocean sensing and forecasting. The consortium’s academic home at MIT also opens the door to cross-departmental collaboration across the Institute.
The MC will launch multiple research projects designed to tackle challenges from a wide range of angles, all united by cutting-edge data evaluation and computation techniques. Collaborators will research latest designs and methods that improve efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, explore feasibility of different fuels, and advance data-driven decision-making, manufacturing and materials, hydrodynamic performance, and cybersecurity.
“This consortium brings a strong collection of great corporations that, together, has the potential to be a world shipping shaper in itself,” says Christopher J. Wiernicki SM ’85, chair and chief executive officer of ABS.
“The strength and uniqueness of this consortium is the members, that are all world-class organizations and real difference makers. The power to harness the members’ experience and know-how, together with MIT’s technology reach, creates real jet fuel to drive progress,” Wiernicki says. “In addition to researching key barriers, bottlenecks, and knowledge gaps within the emissions challenge, the consortium looks to enable development of the novel technology and policy innovation that will likely be key. Long run, the consortium hopes to offer the gravity we’ll must bend the curve.”
