Possibilities of application of FSA methodology to stability of ships

Abstract

Recently IMO recommended application of the Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) methodology to the development of safety rules. The main purpose of the paper is to analyse the difficulties that arise with the application of FSA methodology to stability problems and eventually to propose ways to solve some of them. The first two steps in the FSA methodology are identification of hazards and assessment of risk. With regard to intact and damage stability problems hazards that may lead to loss of the ship should be identified. The hazards could be identified on the basis of the analysis of casualty data and of the experts opinions. For the purpose of assessment of probabilities involved various scenarios leading to ship capsizing or foundering have to be analysed. Statistical methods, model tests and mathematical simulation have to be used. Risk, which is the product of probability of the hazard and its consequences has also to be assessed and the main difficulty would be evaluation of consequences. In the paper methods of identification of hazards are discussed and various possibilities to assess the risk involved are considered.