Due to global warming and the continuous decline of Arctic sea ice, maritime transport in the Arctic region has increased dramatically. While operating in the Arctic area, ships face regular environment loads and ice loads synchronously, the consideration of ice resistance is essential for the fuel consumption estimation in the ice-covered water voyage. In this paper, a theoretical fuel consumption model is proposed based on the empirical method for a ship sailing through the Arctic route. The results are compared with the full-scale measurements in a real Arctic ship navigation and discussed with regards to uncertainties and the prediction capacity of the fuel consumption model. The encountered sea states and ice thickness are constructed by hindcast reanalysis data and climate model projections.
Since the early 21st century, commercial shipping activities in the Arctic region has significantly increased due to the gradual shrinking of the ice cap. It was noted (Schøyen and Bråthen, 2011) that the Arctic passages could dramatically facilitate shorter transit distance compared to conventional heave Suez Canal routes, between Europe and East Asian ports. While the distance decline has the capacity to lower the sailing time, emissions, fuel, and overall cost, leading to a prosperous commercial marine transport in the Arctic region. For shipping through two predominant Arctic routes, the so-called Northeast Passage (NEP) and Northwest Passage (NWP), the safety and economic benefit are the most fundamental factors to influence the feasibility (Theocharis, 2018). In terms of the sailing economy, it should be considered comprehensively with the ship speed reduction caused by sea ice in the Arctic area (Farré and et al, 2014). Although many types of research have been done on ice resistance, included empirical and semi-analytical methods, there is no individual and definite method existed (Hu and Zhou, 2015). Hence, the raising awareness of the fuel consumption model, included ice resistance estimation, can optimize the economic evaluation and promote the Arctic shipping exploration in the future. Driven by the potentiality, this study presents a logical comparison between the theoretical fuel consumption model and the collected data in a real ship navigation. Although the existent methods have some inherited drawbacks for the ice resistance prediction, they are still reflecting the state of the art.
