DLR's WoodShip Project Targets 30% Weight Cuts on Cruise Ships

A German aerospace research center claims wood-based components could cut weight by roughly 30% on cruise ships — and AIDA is letting it test that claim, without committing a single vessel.

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) won the sustainability category at the AIDA Innovation Hub in Rostock on Sept. 16 with a project called WoodShip. The prize gives DLR a path to develop the idea with AIDA through an implementation study or onboard pilot projects — but the cruise line explicitly stopped short of any commitment to install timber on its ships.

That caution matters. AIDA said only those study and pilot steps will show which solutions actually work technically and economically. For sellers of cruise, nothing changes yet; this is materials research, not a fleet retrofit.

Where would the wood actually go?

Nobody is proposing a wooden cruise ship. The plan starts with semi-load-bearing exterior components: privacy screens, cladding, and parts of balcony areas. Dr. Elmar Beeh, who heads materials and process applications for road and rail vehicles at DLR's Institute of Vehicle Concepts in Stuttgart, said work on exactly where wood can go is still an ongoing investigation.

The weight argument is concrete. Beeh cited beech at around 700 kilograms per cubic meter and light woods like albasia at roughly 250 to 400, against about 7,800 for steel — meaning light woods come in at less than a twentieth of steel's density. The gains matter most on upper decks, where less weight could translate into lower fuel consumption and fewer emissions over a vessel's life.

The takeaway: the pitch is fuel savings via lighter topsides, not a design revolution.

Why is an aerospace center building ship parts?

"Well the name 'Aerospace' has a lot of historical reasons," Beeh said. His institute has traditionally researched road and rail vehicles, and his department works on lightweight construction and renewable materials. In 2024 it set up a center of excellence for wood in vehicle structures, aiming to use wood as a load-bearing part of vehicles of all kinds.

The rail work turned out to transfer well, Beeh explained. "It is precisely this knowledge that we have now applied to shipbuilding," he said. What matters isn't the vehicle type but how the wood is designed and validated to meet the relevant safety requirements.

Can timber pass fire rules at sea?

Fire safety is why timber was historically kept out of shipbuilding, and Beeh acknowledged it's the hurdle the team wants to clear outright. His evidence: DLR's wood-based materials already meet the strict fire requirements of European railway standard DIN/EN 45545, and multi-story timber buildings have solved comparable problems for years. In the team's demonstrator, impregnated beech plywood combined with metal or plastic cladding reached the required hazard levels.

Ships, though, play by a different rulebook. Beeh said evidence would have to be provided under ship-specific regulations — fire tests on specific components, new certification guidelines for timber in shipbuilding, and approval from classification societies. DLR also expects a dedicated fire laboratory to open in early 2027 to test timber components under realistic conditions, which he called an important prerequisite for the project's path.

In short: rail certification doesn't count at sea, and maritime approval is years of work away.

What happens next?

Beeh described AIDA's conditional stance as the same position from DLR's side. His team's next step is to deepen collaboration, pick specific use cases and test subjects, and define a framework for a joint study or pilot phase. The award, he said, was "above all confirmation that our approach is working," and gives DLR its first chance to validate findings in a maritime operating environment.

His five-year goal: WoodShip out of the laboratory, first timber components in series production, reliable operating data from day-to-day ship life, and a clear picture of which parts can scale in standardized quantities across different vessel sizes. That's a projection, not a measured result — and AIDA's fleet will only see wood if the pilot economics hold up.