Safer by design: using computer simulation to predict the evacuation performance of passenger ships

When designing a new passenger ship or modifiying an existing design, how do we ensure that the proposed design is safe from an evacuation point of view? In the building and aviation industries, computer based evacuation models are being used to tackle similar issues. In these industries, the traditonal restrictive prescriptive approach to design is making way for performance based design methodologies using risk assessment and computer simulation. In the maritime industry, ship evacuation models off the promise to quickly and efficiently bring these considerations into the design phase, while the ship is "on the drawing board". This paper describes the development of evacuation models with applications to passenger ships and further discusses issues concerning data requirements and validation.

Safer by design: simulating fire and escape at sea

When designing a new passenger ship or modifying an existing design, how do we ensure that the proposed design and crew emergency procedures are safe from an evacuation resulting from fire or other incident? In the wake of major maritime disasters such as the Scandinavian Star, Herald of Free Enterprise, Estonia and in light of the growth in the numbers of high density, high-speed ferries and large capacity cruise ships, issues concerning the evacuation of passengers and crew at sea are receiving renewed interest. Fire and evacuation models with features such as the ability to realistically simulate the spread of fire and fire suppression systems and the human response to fire as well as the capability to model human performance in heeled orientations linked to a virtual reality environment that produces realistic visualisations of the modelled scenarios are now available and can be used to aid the engineer in assessing ship design and procedures. This paper describes the maritimeEXODUS ship evacuation and the SMARTFIRE fire simulation model and provides an example application demonstrating the use of the models in performing fire and evacuation analysis for a large passenger ship partially based on the requirements of MSC circular 1033. The fire simulations include the action of a water mist system.

Safer by design

Abstract not available