Internship / Graduation project: Minimizing energy loss in high pressure water

Introduction to Fleet Cleaner

Fleet  Cleaner  develops  and deploys robots for ship hull cleanings. We are an innovative technical company based in Delft. With our unique robot we offer the most complete solution for ship hull cleanings on the market, available in all Dutch seaports. The Fleet Cleaner robot removes fouling from a ship’s hull, thereby increasing fuel efficiency dramatically and reducing fuel costs. The cleaning is performed during loading and unloading in port; resulting in no down-time for the vessel. The fouling that is removed from the vessel is captured and filtered by our state-of-the-art filtering system aboard our support vessel. This is the reason that Fleet Cleaner is one of only a few companies licensed to perform hull cleanings in Dutch ports.

Research objectives

The Fleet Cleaner robot uses high pressure water to clean ships. Rotating nozzles on the robot ensure that the complete surface of the hull is covered. The mounting of these nozzles, and the angles of the waterjet were chosen during the design of the robot. However no serious effort  was made to optimize these parameters. It can be expected that the efficiency of the cleaning system can be improved by modeling the water jets and investigating the effects of the different parameters. Therefore we are looking for interns who are interested in one or more of the following topics:

• Modelling the water flow of rotating high pressure water jets
• Optimizing a complex, multi-parameter system
• Performing tests on the robot to confirm the findings from the model

We are looking for a talented and enthusiastic MSc student, preferably with a background in maritime engineering, mechanical engineering, or related engineering fields. We offer the following:

• 3-12 months thesis assignment or internship at Fleet Cleaner (in Delft)
• Actual implementation and testing of your work in a real-world application
• Working in an innovative company
• Working together in a young, enthusiastic and multidisciplinary team
• An appropriate internship allowance