Proceedings 18th International Conference on Ships and Shipping Research 2015 – NAV’2015

The aim of the conference is to highlight how the results of the international research and development can contribute to finding a solution to the current crisis that the shipbuilding industry, and in particular the European Union, are facing in recent years. Innovation can be of great help to overcome the current critical moment. On the other hand new requirements relating to the protection of environmental values impose new requirements on designers and builders of ships and onboard systems. The amendments to MARPOL Annex VI Regulations for the prevention of air pollution from ships, which entered into force on 1 January 2013, add a new Chapter 4 to Annex VI to make mandatory the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) for new ships, and the Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEE MP) for all ships. From this point of view, the choice of Lecco as NAV 2015 location represents a clear reference to sustainability, because Lecco is just a few kilometres from Milan, the city selected to host, in the same period of NAV 2015 Conference, the great event of Expo Milano 2015. it is the first universal exposition in history to be remembered for its contribution towards education on food and the precious resources of our planet. As well as Expo 2015 is focused on food sustainability, NAV 2015 edition is characterized by meaningful papers and workshops on ship energy saving, fisheries and aquaculture, and more broadly on maritime sustainability. An International Scientific Committee was established with the participation of selected representatives of international academic institutions and relevant industrial sectors. They are from Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Finland, Italy, Malta, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States of America. More than one hundred abstracts were submitted. After a preliminary screening of the abstracts, the selected papers were subjected to final peer review.