Proposal On Advanced Monitoring System AndData Analysis For Ship Structural Safety

Abstract

How to manage a ship in economical performance and in structural safety at sea through her service life - this is the recent key interest for ship owners, operators, builders and other maritime party concerned. It will be a first step technically to gather data of ship condition at sea such as speed, motions and ship strength under sea environment for purpose of estimating and predicting a ship's behavior. Monitoring is one of the most effective and practical approach for that. The authors have investigated an advanced method to monitor ship responses for the above purpose, and carried out more than one-year field test by using a container ship of 4800 TEU with installation of the proposed monitoring system. Different from a conventional full-scale measurement, the advanced monitoring system should be simple sensing system, with quick data analysis and long-term reliability and also should have proper communicating tool between shipboard and control center on land such as telecommunication via satellite, those of which were experimentally attempted in the field test. Through the trial test, the authors were able to give the skeleton of the advanced monitoring system with necessary means for sensing, including not only hull strain measurement but also new sensor for long-time damage accumulation such as sacrificial device for fatigue damage, and with the analysis procedures both for avoiding serious structural failure in rough sea and for the long-term maintenance planning, those of which will be expected to apply for the shipping fields in the near future.