Probabilistic assessment of survivability in case of grounding: development and testing of a direct non-zonal approach

This paper presents the results of ongoing research efforts aimed at the theoretical development and practical implementation of a probabilistic framework for regulatory assessment of ship survivability following grounding accidents, with particular attention to passenger vessels. In the envisioned framework, the probabilities of flooding of a compartment, or a group of compartments, i.e. the so-called “p-factors”, are determined using a flexible and easily updatable direct non-zonal approach. The assessment of the conditional ship survivability, on the other hand, is based on the SOLAS “s-factor”. The general framework is described, together with implementation details in the specific case of bottom grounding. Testing results, carried out using a specifically developed software tool, are also reported.