Ship Damage Stability Enhancement through Crashworthiness

Crashworthiness as one of the Risk Control Options (RCOs) for damage stability enhancement has been around since the 1990s, potentially earlier. Yet, it has never managed to gain inroads for routine use in ship design and operation to enhance ship damage stability cost-effectively, more specifically targeting passenger ships. A key reason relates to lack of understanding of how the concept can be used in ship design or design upgrades to enhance damage stability, especially since this requires a complete risk assessment of this RCO adopting the Alternative Design and Arrangements methodology, which could be time-consuming and only possible through expert guidance. The latter is also linked to lack of efficient tools to undertake such analysis routinely as well as a lack of in-depth research and experiential knowledge on how best to benefit from this concept. This paper attempts to cover these gaps and provide proof of concept evidence by considering damage stability upgrade of a cruise ship through crashworthiness. Other risk control options are also evaluated, for comparative assessment of cost-effectiveness, leading to useful conclusions and guidelines on how to use the crashworthiness concept as a credible risk control option for damage stability enhancement.