Collision Risk Modelling of Supply Vessels and Offshore Platforms Under Uncertainty

Abstract

Serious accidents in the marine and offshore industry have underscored the need for safety evaluation of maritime operations using risk and safety analysis methods which have become a powerful tool in identifying technical solutions and operational management procedures. Given that Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) is a known methodology used for analysing engineering systems, the approach is usually conducted using known failure data. But most offshore operations are conducted in a challenging and uncertain environment and the failure data of some of these systems are usually unavailable requiring a flexible and yet robust algorithm for their analysis. This paper therefore seeks to analyse the complex structure of Offshore Supply Vessel (OSV) collision with platforms by incorporating a Fuzzy Fault Tree Analysis (FFTA) method. Fuzzy set theory provides the flexibility to represent vague information from the analysis process. The methodology is structured in such a manner that diverse sets of data are integrated and synthesized for analysing the system. It is envisaged that the proposed method could provide the analyst with a framework to evaluate the risks of collision enabling informed decisions regarding the deployments of resources for system improvement.

A System-Theory and Complex Network-Fused Approach to Analyze Vessel–Wind Turbine Allisions in Offshore Wind Farm Waters

“…Scholars have analyzed various marine accidents arising from the construction and operation phases of offshore wind farms, as well as the corresponding risk influencing factors, to address the issue of navigational risk in offshore wind farm waters for vessels [11,12]. Commonly used methods include the Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) of the International Maritime Organization [13], fault tree [8,14,15], and Bayesian networks [16,17].…”

“…Additionally, the combination of the above-mentioned influencing factors and strong wind energy significantly increases the risk of accidents in offshore wind farm waters, compared to other navigable waters [8]. The most common types of marine accidents in offshore wind farm waters are vessel-wind turbine allisions (VTAs), vessel-vessel collisions, and vessel sinking caused by wind disasters [9].…”

Ship Collision Avoidance Based on the Vulnerability Assessment for Small Vessels in Bad Weather

“…Goerlandt [20] provided a framework of maritime risk reporting system for the ship crew and ship traffic services. Subsequently, John [21] gave that extreme weather was considered to be an important factor leading to the collision risk. In addition, papers [22]- [25] also conducted studies on severe weather factors and hazy environments, verifying the necessity of taking full account of weather conditions.…”