The document discusses ultrasonic anti-fouling as an alternative to present ship hull cleaning methods. Current methods use biocide paints or cleaning the hull in dry dock, which are expensive and harm the environment. Ultrasonic anti-fouling works by attaching actuators to the hull to vibrate it at ultrasonic frequencies of around 40 kHz, preventing biofouling from adhering while having minimal effect on biocide coatings. It can clean ship hulls while in motion and has no restrictions, making it more cost effective than existing cleaning methods.

1. Ultrasonic Anti - Fouling
Department of Applied Electronics and Instrumentation
Name :Milan Jerald
Group members:
Lirin Thomas
Mohammed Sarish
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2. Contents
• Cleaning
• Introduction
• Present Methods For Anti Fouling
• Problems associated with current methods
• Ultrasonic Anti fouling
• Advantages of Ultrasonic Anti Fouling
• References
• THANK YOU
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3. Cleaning
• We all like to keep ourselves and our surrounding
clean. but the process of cleaning can be easy for
some instances and very hard and costly for some
other instances. Such an instance where cleaning is
tideous is cleaning the hull of a ship .
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4. Introduction
Everyone of us has seen that the
bottom of ships are painted red or an
orangish red colour and wondered why it is
painted red. Well this is because the paint is
copper based and it used to prevent
'biofouling'.
"Biofouling is the adhesion of
biological materials to hard surfaces, such as
ship hulls, in a marine environment and it can
commence within seconds of the immersion
of a ship’s hull in the sea. After 6 months
without protection against marine fouling
deposits, biofouling growth increases the drag
on a hull so much as to cause a ship to use up
to 40% more fuel and correspondingly to
produce 40% more CO2 emissions. The
marine industry spends $6 billion (USD)
worldwide in the prevention or removal of
marine fouling
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5. 5
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6. Present Methods For Anti Fouling
• The current methods for anti fouling include;
• using ROVs( remote operated vehicles) to clean the
hull by using brushes attached to it, while the ship is
anchored.
• using diver operated machines similar to the ROV to
clean the hull.
• to use anti fouling paint, which has biocides in it.
• put the ship in a dry dock and use manual work force
to clean the hull on land.
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7. Problems associated with current methods
• Copper based biocide paints cause harm to the
marine environment.
• The cleaning of ships using ROVs and brushes cause
the biocide to spread into the surrounding water.
• Due to this the cleaning of ship hulls of bio fouling
has been banneD in most ports around the world.
• Cleaning the fouling of the ship often requires the
ship to be put in dry dock and cleaned while out of
the water, which is very expensive.
• And this has to be once every two years.
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8. Ultrasonic Anti fouling
• Ultrasonic waves are used to clean cloged pipes and
dirty machine parts.
• And the same technology could be used to keep the
hull of a ship clean.
• The hull can be made to vibrate at ultrasonic
frequencies by attaching actuators to it.
• The hull being a large piece of metal has to be
vibrated at around 40 khz to achieve anti fouling
properties without compromising the structural
integrity of the hull.
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9. Advantages of Ultrasonic Anti Fouling
• It has minimal or no effect on the biocide coating.
• It can be used while the ship is in motion and during
normal operation.
• there are no restrictions on it's liberal use.
• cost effective.
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10. References
• https://cordis.europa.eu
• https://physorg.com
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11. THANK YOU
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