Effect of Cavitation in Ships on the Environment

Abstract

Ships are the most important transport tools worldwide in respect to their huge cargo carrying capacities and enabling the connections between distant lands. Although shipping transportation is the most economic transportation mode, there could be large amount of operational costs as a result of hard conditions of these environment. Ship’s hull, propeller, machineries, and equipment work in contact with liquid flows. As it is well known, cavitation is one of the main reasons of material fatigue and corrosion, which occurs due to decreasing of the pressure below the saturation pressure of the liquid. The prevention of cavitation on propeller, on rudder, in pumps, in pipes, and in fittings such as valves and elbows leads to lower depreciation costs of the equipment. Also cavitation-based damages could detain the ships from their sail, leading to crucial costs for the shipping companies. Thus cavitation reduction methods should be determined and implemented. In this study, the effect of cavitation on total energy loss and damage on world seas and maritime transportation are presented.