Decision-making for cable routing at detailed ship design through life cycle and cost assessment

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper was to establish a practical approach to evaluating economic and eco-friendly designs for cable arrangement on the deck-side of offshore vessels. Three credible options were identified: acableway arrangement on the main deck alone; the arrangement using both the main deck and passageways; and the arrangement using passageway alone. Each design option was investigated, and their economic and environmental impacts were quantified in aholistic view by Life Cycle and Cost Assessment. The economic and environmental impacts were normalized into monetary values to evaluate the best design option overall. Results revealed that the cableway arrangement using only passageways was the best solution, showing that the total cost of the design was estimated at 308,573 USD, which was 130,010 USD less than the cost of the worst option using only the main deck. The case study proved the effectiveness of the proposed approach to determine an optimal design from avariety of choices, which offers insight into current problems that have underestimated the influence of ship designs on environmental impact. In order to enhance the cleaner production, the proposed approach can be widely applied to every part of shipbuilding such as designing of hull, piping and outfitting.