PROBABILISTIC SURVIVABILITY ASSESSMENT OF DAMAGED PASSENGER RO-RO SHIPS USING MONTE-CARLO SIMULATION

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Santos, Tiago A. | Soares, C. Guedes

Affiliations: Unit of Marine Technology and Engineering, Technical University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal

Abstract: This paper presents a probabilistic methodology for assessing the survivability of damaged passenger Ro-Ro ships through the identification of critical damage scenarios. The Static Equivalent Method is used to calculate the critical sea state the ship can survive in a given damage scenario and Monte-Carlo simulation is used to take into account the uncertainties in the ship's loading condition at the time of the accident: intact draught, vertical and longitudinal position of the centre of gravity and permeability of the Ro-Ro decks. The application of these methods to the ranking of damage scenarios according to the critical sea state the ship can survive is presented for two different passenger Ro-Ro ships. The critical damage scenarios for each ship are then identified. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to identify the most important random variables affecting the ship's survivability. The number of Monte Carlo runs necessary for stabilising the results is also investigated.

Journal: International Shipbuilding Progress, vol. 49, no. 4, pp. 275-300, 2002