A rubber bag for liquid cargo to improve ship collision safety

Collisions and grounding accidents of ships, but also the failure of the hull-integrity, can lead to oil leakage. Examples are the Rena in 2011, the Hebei Spirit in 2007 and the much known accident of the Prestige in 2002. Consequently research regarding the enhancement of the structural design to increase the safety-level of ships in case of accidents is important. In this paper the use of a rubber bag as a second barrier is presented as an alternative concept to prevent oil leakage in case of accidents. The influence of the rubber bag is investigated using the example of a ship collision. A simplified tanker side structure as well as a box shaped rubber bag are analyzed with the finite element method. The material model for the rubber bag is calibrated with tensile tests to obtain the required material parameters. The reaction forces and the associated penetration depth are analyzed. The comparison is done between the structure with and without the rubber bag. For the latter, the general behavior is compared with large-scale experimental results. Furthermore an additional increase of the survivability of the ship due to the rubber bag without changing the common structural design is discussed.

Content

DDC Class

600: Technology