Achievement of the new underwater radiated noise requirements by the Spanish shipbuilding industry. The FRV "Ramón Margalef"

Abstract

The new EU's "Green Policy" and IMO regulation focused on reducing the environmental impact of vessels, origins new directives that shall affect the Shipbuilding Industry. The authors' participation in the SILENV and in the BESST projects within the FP7 has permitted to notice that the underwater radiated noise by the ships became the most outstanding novelty and the stronger challenge that needed to be technically solved. Following this new trend, the appearance of some class notations with "different limits" and the lack of consensus about the maximum noise levels that marine fauna can stand, makes difficult to define a clear technological strategy. Until an agreement is reached, the Shipbuilding industry will "fight against a ghost". In this "confusing scenario" this paper is a clear example of how the Shipbuilding industry is moving ahead to reduce the impact of the new ships. The dynamic and acoustic design carried out by the authors of the FRV "Ramón Margalef" for the Oceanographic Spanish Institute together with the experimental results measured that show fully compliance with the most restrictive ICES and new IMO requirements, can be considered a proof of how the new requirements have been reached by the Spanish Shipbuilding Industry. © 2012 Acoustical Society of America.