Risk-Based Ship Design and Approval

SAFEDOR (Design, Operation and Regulation for Safety) is about to complete the first half of its four year programme. To mark this event, partners of SAFEDOR will present the latest results at a public conference at the Renaissance Hotel in Brussels on 7 and 8 May 2007. The event will provide an excellent opportunity to familiarise engineers with the principles underlying risk-based ship design and approval, and to discuss early applications.

Risk-based approaches in the maritime industry started with the concept of probabilistic damage stability, were widely applied within the offshore sector and are now being adapted and more and more utilized within the shipping sector. The SAFEDOR approach focuses on risk-based design and risk-based approval to provide a transparent and consistent methodology that accounts for the safety performance of a ship design along with other performance variables like speed, cargo capacity, endurance, etc. Thus, the aim of SAFEDOR is not only to provide the technical elements of a new design and approval methodology but also to establish a new safety philosophy.

SAFEDOR tackles the new philosophy in theory and practice. Results of development activities comprise the process for risk-based design along with a novel decision-making concept and advanced tools to predict the safety performance of a ship in extreme or accidental conditions. In parallel, practical application has resulted in eight innovative ship designs and concepts for safety-critical technology. The modernisation of the regulatory framework is the second pillar of SAFEDOR and results comprise a draft process for risk-based ship and system approval along with acceptance criteria at top functional level.

SAFEDOR is a project funded by the European Commission under the 6th RTD Framework Programme, in which a total of 53 project partners from all sectors of the maritime industry in Europe participate. The work is coordinated by Germanischer Lloyd.