World's Largest Containership Enters Service

The ABS-classed Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller (MMM) officially entered service in June 2013.  The first of the Maersk Line Triple-E series, the MMM is the largest containership in operation with a length of 400 m, a beam of 59 m, a draft of 14.5 m and a deadweight of 165,000 metric tons.

ABS’ scope of work included assisting with design development, facilitating hazard identification workshops with Maersk and providing experienced surveyors from the AP Moller Maersk Odense Steel Shipyard in Denmark to work on this project at the Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., Ltd. yard in Okpo, South Korea.

The experience gained during the plan review and new construction survey will directly impact the ABS rule development process, keeping ABS rules and standards ahead of the technology curve.

Because the MMM is the largest containership ever built and designed, ABS augmented plan review with additional engineering analyses. The scope of services included additional features that are unique to container carriers of this magnitude. Engineers from ABS Technology, the Busan engineering office and ABS Pacific Division, Singapore Administration had to coordinate plan review activities closely to provide smooth service delivery.

Some of the additional work applied to the plan review included full ship dynamic loading analysis, spectral-based fatigue analysis, global vibration analysis, slamming analysis, whipping analysis and springing analysis.

Although the construction process was not remarkably different from that for a smaller containership,   the engineering team conducting the work had to take into account the sheer size of the vessel.

What was different was primarily a matter of scale, with many more tests and trials, more extensive analysis for sea keeping characteristics, more intensive planning for the large number of components and the need to take into account more providers in the vendor coordination process

The name Triple E denotes the three critical design principles of this vessel series: economy of scale, energy efficiency and environmentally improved. The Triple-E vessels are designed for the Asia to North Europe shipping route, which is considered the busiest and longest in the world and one where economies of scale and fuel efficiency will be most valuable. According to Maersk, the size and capacity of these vessels will help significantly reduce energy consumption and lower CO₂ emissions.

The MMM completed its maiden voyage in June, but ABS’ work is far from finished. ABS engineers and Surveyors will continue to work on additional vessels in the Triple-E series in the coming months.