As there are many kinds of industrial activities rapidly increasing around the world, various environmental pollutants have become social problems today. To solve such problems, several different international organizations have been established, with more various environmental regulations enacted and implemented.
Even in the shipping industry, IMO (International Maritime Organization) has adopted and applied MARPOL Annex IV to new shipping orders since 2011. This convention, however, is appled only to medium and large-sized ocean-going vessels over GT 400 tons as regulation targets, and small-sized vessels, which account for the absolute majority of all the vessels, are exempt from the regulation. There are about 90,000 vessels registered in Korea, and about 80,000 ones out of them are domestic vessels. Besides, 84% of the registered domestic vessels are fishing vessels under 20 tons, mostly made of FRP (Fiber Reinforced Plastics). According to NIER (National Institute of Environmental Research) of Korea, domestic vessels emit about 50% of the greenhouse. Considering this fact, it is supposed that small-sized FRP vessels release a great many of greenhouse gas emissions as well, and it seems necessary to take proper countermeasures to manage small-sized domestic vessels, exempt from the regulation.
Thus, this study aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vessels by designing vessel weight optimization and increasing the efficiency of vessels. Recently, more FRP fishing vessels are being built in Korea due to increased marine leisure activities, and this study analyzed them by ISO and international rules and optimized the weight of hull structures through FRP Optimization Algorithm. As a result, it was found that Korean design rules have design margins of 6.4~11%, compared to ISO and international rules, and when FRP Weight Optimization Algorithm is applied to the present shipbuilding, it is possible to reduce the weight of vessels by 18.06%, compared to the original design plans. In conclusion, it is judged that with this weight optimization design plan applied to FRP fishing vessels, it is possible to reduce emissions from all the small-sized vessels as well.