Analysis of the accident of the MVNakhodka. Part 1. Estimation of wave loads

Abstract

MVNakhodka collapsed and broke in two on January 2, 1997 in the Sea of Japan, giving rise to a serious and disastrous oil spill on the coastline of Japan. During the inquiry into the cause of the accident, one of the main tasks of the inquiry committee was to identify the external loads which made the ship structure collapse. Among the several possible scenarios for the accident, after careful examination, the wave loads in the heavy weather at the time of the accident were taken to be the most plausible cause. The results of that research are described in two papers, and the present paper deals with the way in which wave loads on theNakhodka at the moment of the accident were estimated. We first describe the details of the accident such as the location, the sea condition, the loading condition, and the ship's heading speed. Then the static loads resulting from the distribution of the cargo weight and the buoyancy are given to show that the static bending moment at the time of the accident caused extreme sagging. Next the wave loads in the irregular waves, calculated by the nonlinear time domain simulation program SRSLAM, are presented. It is shown that the bending moment in the waves reaches 1 087 800 KN*m at maximum SS 6.9, which is where the hull girder collapse took place. It was concluded that the ship broke in two because the bending moment exceeded the hull girder strength which had been reduced due to corrosion, taking into account conclusions derived from the research dealing with the structural strength aspect. We also discuss the stochastic significance of the estimated value and nonlinear nature of the peak distribution, in addition to the effects of the ship speed and wave heading on the wave load estimation.