International Workshop on

Dynamic Stability Considerations in Ship Design

REMARKS ON FUTURE GENERATION STABILITY SAFETY

NORMS.

KOBYLIŃSKI LECH
Foundation for Safety of Navigation and Environment Protection

1. INTRODUCTION - FUTURE GENERATION STABILITY CRITERIA

Following this decision IMO SLF Sub-committee considered how to proceed in
order to accomplish the task of developing future generation stability criteria. and
preliminary discussion already started on the possible ways of doing that. At its 51 st
session in 2008 the SLF Sub-committee advised by the Working Group on stability
agreed to the framework for those criteria. [IMO 2008].
The framework, apart from inclusion of definitions of basic terms, included also
proposal to apply vulnerability criteria that would check for the susceptibility of the ship
to various modes of stability failure and that should be based on simplified models,
simple mathematical formulations, analytical solutions or statistical data. Vulnerability
criteria are intended to distinguish between conventional and non-conventional ships.
According to the decision of the Sub-Committee, new generation stability criteria
are intended basically for non-conventional ships and should be used as alternative or
supplement to existing criteria.
Therefore, general procedure of application of the new generation stability criteria
might be presented as follows:
1. Conventional ships – existing criteria
2. Non-conventional ships – future generation stability criteria
The new generation stability criteria according to the proposal should take into
consideration primarily three modes of failure:
 restoring arm variation problems such as parametric excitation and pure loss of
stability
 stability under dead ship condition, and
 manoeuvring related problems in waves such as broaching-.to
The adopted Framework does not specify how the new criteria should be
developed and what form the may take. In general, the recommendations regarding
possible approach to the development of future generation criteria are rather vague. This
approach, more widely explained in the paper by Belenky et al [2008], revealed that the
criteria should possibly be still design oriented and be based on ship performance.
When developing new generation stability criteria it is essential to decide the
format of those criteria. At present the format of the new generation stability criteria is
not yet decided. The scheme of the safety assurance in respect of stability in the future
could be presented as follows (Table 1):
 Table 1. Methods of safety assurance
SHIP TYPES METHOD OF STABILITY SAFETY
ASSESSMENT

Conventional, not Prescriptive criteria as in the IS Code

sophisticated

Novel types, large Not yet decided

sophisticated ships

2. CRITICAL COMMENTS REGARDING LATEST PROPOSALS OF THE

WORKING GROUP
The Framework for development of new generation stability criteria agreed by the
SLF Sub-committee (IMO 2008) does not include any hints as to the form of the future
criteria nor as to the tools that should be used. The general layout of the document leads
however to the conclusion that the intention is to develop future criteria as prescriptive
parametric performance based criteria and basically design oriented.
The merit of the proposal consist of taking into account first of all hazards posed
by some phenomena occurring when the ship is sailing amongst the waves, as pointed
out in paragraph 1 above. Although those dangerous situations were well recognized 25
years ago, when the SLF Subcommittee at its 29 th and following sessions decided that
those situations need further consideration leading possibly to development of some
safety criteria (IMO 1984). The problem at that time was apparently too difficult to
solve and the idea was ultimately abandoned. With much better tools (computer codes)
available now, the idea of developing criteria taking into consideration those situations
came back to life again and there certainly exists a possibility of developing simulation
programs as a basis for the new criteria.
The weak point of the proposed approach is that only three dangerous situations
were selected for future consideration. Statistical data on stability casualties do not
indicate, however, that those situations are the most common cause of stability
accidents In the opinion of the author the approach proposed by the working group
restricts the purpose of the future criteria and requirements especially with the view of
goal oriented approach. There certainly is merit in consideration of the hazardous
situations mentioned above, but the possibility to develop comparatively simple
prescriptive requirements and formulae that could be used as criteria taking account the
above phenomena is doubtful.
This conservative approach seems to be inadequate. It is true, that it is very
difficult in the majority of stability failures to discover a single cause of casualty.
Usually an accident is a consequence of the chain of events where human failure plays
predominant role. Very seldom it is possible to reveal that accident was caused solely
by bad design, especially that ships should satisfy stability requirements in force.
 The analysis of causes of 364 stability casualties collated from various sources
(Kobyliński 2008) allowed to draw some general conclusions revealing that in the great
majority of cases casualties (about 80%) human and organizational errors are
responsible for the accident that is usually the result of a sequence of events that involve
environmental conditions, ship loading condition, ship handling aspects and human
factor in general and usually it is associated with some other factors such as shifting of
cargo – the most frequent event - or with water inrush Most accidents took place in
rough sea, although forces of the sea were not always the primary event. Several
casualties happened in comparatively calm sea. Analysis of causes of stability failures
reveals also that design features of the ship are responsible for a small percentage of
casualties

3. ADVOCATING SYSTEM AND HOLISTIC APPROACH TO FUTURE

CRITERIA
Taking the above in mind it is the oinion of the author that in developing future
generation stability criteria wider holistic and system approach has to be taken. The
system of safety against capsizing is rather a complicated one, but at least it include ship
characteristics itself, enviromental effect met, operational aspects and human factor.
Taking holistic approach all risks to stability should be taken into account,
although the not necessarily may be considered at the same time. However, considering
selected dangerous situations (selected risks) it should be clearly stated why those
situations are taken into consideration first, otherwise one may have impressiion that
these situations are the only risks to stability which obviously is not the case.
The diagram showing possible causes of stability failure is shown in fig. 1.

STABILITY
FAILURE

and/or

Critical Cargo Forces of Fire and External heeling

stability shifting the sea explosion moments

Icing Cargo and HOE

ballast
operations

Fig.1. . Basic hazards to stability (HOE –human and organisation errors)

In order to achieve sufficient level of safety with respect of stability, all elements
creating stability system have to be taken into account. Taking into account the fact, that
less than 20% of all casualties are caused by faulty or bad design of the ship, the
existing safety requirements that refer mainly to design features of the ship can not
ensure sufficient level of safety, in particular with regard to ships having novel design
features. It is the crucial problem the proper identification of various hazards to which a
ship may be subjected.. According to the definition, hazard is “a potential to threaten
human life, health, property or the environment” [IMO 2002].. When performing risk
analysis all relevant types of hazards must be taken into consideration – environmental,
technical, operational and managerial. Human factor must be taken also into
consideration.

.
4. GOAL ORIENTED APPROACH
The most recent concept of safety regulations is goal-based standards. Goal based
regulations does not specify the means of achieving compliance but sets goals that allow
alternative ways of achieving compliance (Hoppe 2006). Goal-based standards are for
some time considered at IMO and appraised by some authors (Vassalos 2002,
Chantelauve 2005), and they were introduced in some areas, albeit not in the systematic
manner. Marine Safety Committee of IMO commenced in 2004 at MSCC 78 its work
on goal-based standards in relation to ship construction adopting five-tier system (Table
2). Recently. conference presenting results of the SAFEDOR project strongly advised to
apply goal based approach including risk assessment to safety requirements [RINA
2009].
IMO MSC committee agreed in principle on the following tier I goals to be met in
order to build and operate safe and environmentally friendly ships: “Ships are to be
designed and constructed for a specific design life to be safe and environmentally
friendly, when properly operated and maintained under specified operating and
environmental conditions, in intact and specified damage conditions, throughout their
life”.
Table 2. Five-tier system for goal-based requirements
Tier I: Goals
Tier II: Functional requirements
Tier III: Verification criteria of compliance
Tier IV Technical procedures and guidelines, classification rules and
industry standards
Tier V Codes of practice and safety and quality systems for
shipbuilding, ship operation, maintenance, training etc

Goal oriented approach consists of adopting of multitude of means asuring safety

that includes compulsory requirements as e.g included in the SOLAS convention,
recommedations related to operational factors, guidances and other instruments as
shown in the above table.
Adopting goal oriented approach as recommeded by IMO Marine Safety
Committee and quite recently by SAFEDOR Conference (RINA 2009) there is the
possibility to develop safety requirements of different form (prescriptive, risk based,
recommendations, guidelines etc). This will provide necessary flexibility and allow
deveopment requirement in many stages.

5. PRESCIPTIVE VERSUS RISC BASED CRITERIA.

When considering future generation stability criteria one must realize that
requirements may be of the prescriptive nature, or based on risk analysis. The basic
dichotomy in the conception of safety requirements is between these two approaches
(Kobyliński 2005).
A good comparison of prescriptive regulations versus risk-based approach was
given in the paper by Luhmann & Maccari [2009]. This is shown in the table 3.

.
Table 1. Comparison of features of prescriptive criteria and risk-based approach

PRESCRIPTIVE RISK-BASED
Design improvement progressive Significant evolution, new
prototypes
Compliance with full substantial
regulations
Direct calculations Limited amount Large use
Equipment and suppliers Well known Innovative, new certification
process
Innovation Limited Driven by risk-based
Driven by new product requirements
availability
Cost Savings based upon Cost-benefit analysis to
economy & minimum support innovative solutions
requirements
Plan approval process standard Direct, complex time
consuming

The authoe sees many advantages using risk analysis instead of prescriptive
requirements. Acrtually vulnerability criteria are elents of risk analysis.

6. CONCLUSIONS
Two conclusions may be drawn from the above considerations:
1. It would be necessary to stress the point that holistic approach should be
adopted and all risk to stability should be taken into consideration in the future
development of stability requirements, and
2. It may be of advantage to apply risk analysis as an alternative to prescriptive
requirements when considering stability problems.