The configuration of the engine room of a ship differs from ship to ship in terms of the equipment, its layout, and the normal range. Therefore, while the fundamentals can be learned from classroom lectures such as textbooks, it is also necessary to learn about each individual ship. However, Japan's maritime industry is facing a labor shortage and an aging population, and there is little manpower and time to educate newcomers. To address this issue, the authors are developing a ship management support system (hereafter referred to as "support system") using a multi-agent system. When a malfunction occurs in the engine room, it is necessary for the operator to understand the cause of the malfunction, consider the scope of the problem, and make appropriate repairs quickly. Therefore, we attempt to develop a related search application that searches for related devices when a problem occurs and presents them to the engineer, which is expected to contribute to the early identification of the cause and affected area. Since the engineer will be operating the engine after understanding the arrangement and relationship of the equipment, we will attempt to provide support to the inexperience engineer by extending the support system with respect to the operating procedures.

The ICEs are facing tribological issues from marine cylinder oil, vehicle engine LOC and sludge contamination due to fuels and lubricants. It is desirable in fuel economy to apply lubricants which form the tribofilm low in shear stress that suppresses the increase in mixed and boundary friction under the lubrication with engine oils low in viscosity. As described in previous works, their property to form the tribofilm depends on the adsorption rate of oil molecules and the tribochemical reaction rate of additives. Both of these rates change exponentially with temperature as defined in Arrhenius law. The friction data are those measured under the running-in when surface roughness Rq decreases over time. In analyses the oil-film thickness is predicted under the specific relationship between the film thickness ratio of EHL oil-film thickness to Rq and the load bearing ratio of surface asperity contact. Each coverage ratio of the four contact areas; hydrodynamic oil-film, adsorbed film of oil molecules, tribofilm and true metal-metal contact, is determined in accordance with logistic curves for rough interfaces. The temperature rise due to the shear stress of oil-film or metal-metal contact is iteratively calculated. The shear stress for the metal interface is referred to the change of Vickers hardness with temperature. It is assumed that the surface temperature and the shear stress are same in each contact area of adsorbed oil molecules and tribofilm. As an analysis result, it has been found that the surface temperature deeply involves in the friction reduction effect of oil additives.

Towards the net-zero by 2050 goal of the IMO, several paths are being explored in the maritime sector. Alternative fuels are of particular importance in the developments where the marine engineering industry plays key roles along with realization. A hydrogen fuel cell is one of the potential energy sources in that regard. We have been developing a pure fuel cell ship, which utilizes hydrogen fuel cell as well as lithium-ion battery to realize “zero emission” during its operation. The commercialization and operation of pure fuel cell ships are still challenging due to the lack of established design knowledge bases. This paper firstly discusses our design experience of Japanese first pure fuel cell passenger ship Mahoroba. Then, we have proposed pure fuel cell ship designs for coastal ships: a harbor tugboat, a houseboat, and an oil tanker, applying the knowledge gained through the design of the preceding ships. We have also considered energy capabilities regarding their operation schedules. Resulting study showed that pure hydrogen fuel cell coastal ships are realizable while several measures such as operation schedule adjustment, re-evaluation of accommodation spaces in the design phase, etc., are required.