9th Western Europe Symposium

9th Annual Western Europe SNAME Symposium Trip

ABS House, London, 12/10/2018

On Friday the 12th of October 2018, the SNAME Student Section of the University of Strathclyde attended the 9th Annual Western European SNAME Symposium, which took place at ABS House in London. The group consisted of committee members: Nikolaos Koutsodontis (Chairman), Dimitrios Tsevdos (Vice-Chairman), Markella Pikouni (Secretary), Charalampos Dimitriou (Treasurer), Orfeas Protopsaltis (Communication Officer), Alan Kah Yong Lim (Web Master), Charalampos Agapiou (Operation Officer) and Kritonas Dionysiou (Advisor), as well as student members of the Section: Panagiotis Axiotis, Thomas Kourakos, Konstantinos Milioulis, David Kevorkian, Evangelos Stefanou, Fragkiskos Anagnostopoulos, Alexandros Karakasis, Jason Tan and Nikolaos Kapellas.

The team met at Glasgow Central Train Station at 17:00 on Thursday the 11th of October and boarded the train to London Euston at 17:30. The majority of the group stayed at Royal Imperial Hotel in Bloomsbury. Early on Friday morning the students travelled across London to the ABS Europe, Ltd. Office in London House, where the symposium was held. On their arrival at the building the students were greeted by Keith Lilley and Nina Lilley, the Chair of the Western Europe Section and the Junior Vice President of SNAME, respectively. After signing the attendance and safety lists, Nina Lilley escorted them to the room were the Symposium was held.   image1.png               

The Symposium started with an introductory speech from Keith Lilley together with a safety briefing. After that, Demetres Armanes from ABS presented the ‘ABS Perspective for Autonomous Vessels’. Then, a presentation of Henrik Tufors from Transportstyrelsen named ‘IMO’s Work on Autonomous Ship Progress Report’ took place. After a short coffee break, Dr. Andrea Coraddu from the University of Strathclyde spoke about ‘Artificial Intelligence and Big Data – A Marine Engineering Perspective’.

The Symposium was paused for a one-and-a-half-hour lunch break. All the attendees were directed to a pub named ‘The Astronomer’ and they had the opportunity for networking with professionals as well as student members from different SNAME sections while enjoying their lunch. The first presentation after the lunch break was given by Dr. Iraklis Lazakis, the SNAME Section advisor of the University of Strathclyde, which was called ‘Predictive Ship Operations and Maintenance: What’s Next?’. After that, Dr. Rodrigo Fernadez Perez from SENER gave a speech named ‘Shipyard 4.0 and Internet of Ships, The IOT Applied to Shipbuilding’.

Later, the presentations from the two winners of last year’s SNAME Paper Competition took place. The first prize winner was Rayan Bou-Chahine from the University of Strathclyde with a paper on ‘Air Supported Vessel’s Efficiency Compared to Standardized Design by Using CFD’, while the second prize winner was Dimitrios Tsiropoulos from Atkins with a paper on ‘A Sequential Approach to Internal Structural Loads Derivation of FOWT Support Platforms’.

The day was the concluded with a brief presentation for the anniversary of the 125 Years of SNAME by Michael Taylor and the closing remarks from the Chairman Keith Lilley. Continuing Professional Certificates were then distributed to all attendees. Finally, members of the Strathclyde section seized the final opportunity to express their gratitude to SNAME WES for organising this event and giving them the opportunity to attend it.
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When the Symposium came to an end, the group decided to explore the city centre of London. The first thing that the students visited was the Big Ben, which unfortunately was under maintenance. Then, they headed towards the London Eye and enjoyed the magnificent view from the river Thames. Afterwards, the group split up to do some more site seeing. The majority of them took a long walk towards Trafalgar Square, where they enjoyed dinner and then they headed to Covent Garden before returning to their hotel. 
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On Saturday morning a trip to HMS BELFAST, the most significant surviving Second World War Royal Navy warship, was organized by SNAME and RINA. Before going to the trip, some students took the opportunity to visit the British Museum which was located close to their hotel, while others enjoyed a cup of coffee in sunny London. Then, they met up and travelled to London Bridge to find the rest of the group. The cost of the tickets was covered by the coordinators of the event. The students grabbed the chance to explore the nine decks of HMS Belfast following the footsteps of the nine hundred and fifty men who worked on board during the Second World War and the Korean War. They accessed the Boiler and Engine Rooms and explored the powerful machines that drove the shop during operations across the world. They experienced the sights and sounds of controlling a fleet of ships and the Gun Turret simulation in order to understand what it would have been like to be in the midst of a battle. Finally, they took a group picture with Jonathan Morley, the treasurer of SNAME who accompanied them to the visit. When the visit came to an end, the students were free to make their own schedule and enjoy their last day in the Capital of United Kingdom.
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The next day, the members of UoS Student Section boarded the train for their return journey to Glasgow feeling privileged to participate in the trip and understanding the advantages of being a student member of SNAME.

Sincere thanks to Nina Lilley and Keith Lilley for their hard work in organising and running the Symposium as well as SNAME’s support to UoS Section.