Exploring the Influence of Different Arrangements of Semi-Watertight Spaces on Survivability of a Damaged Large Passenger Ship

The transient and progressive flooding of a complex labyrinth of compartments as found on large passenger ships is studied with a numerical non-linear time domain code. Earlier papers showed that such a tool can increase the awareness of how water floods through the ship and which parameters are important for ship survivability with respect to flooding. (Van’t Veer et al., 2002, 2003) This paper presents results from a study carried out to investigate the influence of different arrangements of semi-watertight space on the survivability of a damaged (unbuilt) large passenger ship. It is shown that the location of a single down-flooding point and its kind of protection against flooding can significantly influence the intermediate flooding conditions. It is shown that survivability decreases with increasing wave height and wave steepness. Different aspects in numerical transient and progressive flooding simulations are reported.