A method for breach assessment onboard a damaged passenger ship

Reliable analysis of stability and safety level in a flooding emergency onboard a damaged passenger ship is extremely important for making correct decisions on evacuation and abandonment. Thus there is demand for an automated system that detects flooding and analyzes the severity of the situation. This procedure requires estimation of the actual breach in the hull, and calculation of possible progressive flooding to undamaged compartments. A new approach to the breach assessment, based on measurement data from the flood level sensors, is presented. The developed method is complemented by time-domain flooding simulations in order to separate progressive flooding from direct inflow through the breaches in the hull of the damaged ship. The developed approach is tested and demonstrated with a large passenger ship design for various damage scenarios. The results show that the size and location of the breach can be evaluated with reasonable accuracy on the basis of the level sensor data, provided that there are enough well-placed, working level sensors.