Basic Ship Theory - Module V

Subdivision

All types of ships and boats are subject to the risk of sinking if they lose their watertight
integrity, whether by collision, grounding or internal accident such as an explosion.

Such accidents are frequent enough in practice that some degree of protection
against the effects of accidental flooding is an essential.

The most effective protection is provided by internal subdivision by means of

watertight transverse and/or longitudinal bulkheads, and by some horizontal
subdivision— double bottoms in commercial ships and watertight flats in naval vessels.

The is a need for an internal watertight subdivision of the hull in compartments to resist
the effect of damage (breach) of the hull, or loss of water tightness, and the subsequent
flooding is in itself evident.

There are many uncertainties in providing adequate subdivision.

 The location and extent of damage to be protected against is unknown in

advance.

 The amount, type and location of cargo and liquids in the ship varies both during
and between voyages.

 The designer cannot be sure that corrective measures that might be followed by
the ship's officers in an emergency will be taken or that hazardous steps might be
adopted by mistake.

subdivision adds to the cost of the ship and may interfere with its ability to perform its
function economically. In fact, a ship so ideally compartmented as to be virtually
unsinkable might be of no economic or military value whatsoever.
Subdivision involves a compromise between safety and cost. -- development of
national and international standards of what is considered acceptable.

 The bulkhead deck is the uppermost weathertight deck to which transverse

watertight bulkheads are carried.

Fundamental Effects of damage:-

If the shell of a ship is damaged so as to open one or more internal spaces to the sea,
leakage will take place between the sea and these spaces until stable equilibrium is
established or until the ship sinks or capsizes.

It is impractical to design a ship to withstand any possible damage due to collision,

grounding or military action. The degree to which a vessel approaches this ideal is the
true measure of its safety.

Effects of flooding:

(a). Sinkage (Change of draft). The draft will change so that the displacement of the
remaining unflooded part of the ship is equal to the displacement of the ship before
damage less the weight of any liquids which were in the space opened to the sea.

(b) Change of trim. The ship will trim until the center of buoyancy of the remaining
unflooded part of the ship lies in a transverse plane through the ship's center of gravity
and perpendicular to the equilibrium waterline.

(c) Heel. If the flooded space is unsymmetrical with respect to the centerline, the ship
will heel until the center of buoyancy of the remaining unflooded part of the ship lies in a
fore-and-aft plane through the ship's center of gravity and perpendicular to the
equilibrium waterline (If the in the flooded condition is negative, the flooded ship will be
unstable in the upright condition, and even though the flooded space is symmetrical, the
ship will either heel until a stable heeled condition is reached or capsize). Trim and heel
may result in further flooding through immersion of openings in bulkheads, side shell or
decks (downflooding).

(d) Change of Stability. Flooding changes both the transverse and the longitudinal
stability. The initial metacentric height is given by, GM = KB + BM – KG.
 When a ship is flooded, both KB and BM will change.
 Sinkage results in an increase in KB. If there is sufficient trim, there may also be
an appreciable further increase in KB.
  (BM tends to decrease because of the loss of the loss of moment of inertia of the
flooded part of the waterplane. However, sinkage usually results in an increase in
the moment of inertia of the undamaged part of the waterplane, thus tending to
compensate for the loss. Also, trim by the stern usually increases the transverse
moment of inertia of the undamaged waterplane, and vice versa).
 For ocean-going ships of usual proportions and arrangements, the combined
effect of these factors is usually a net decrease in GM.

(e) Change of Freeboard. The increase in draft after flooding results in a decrease in the
amount of free board.
 Even though the residual GM may be positive, if the freeboard is minimal and the
waterline is close to the deck edge, submerging the deck edge at small angles of
heel greatly reduces the range of positive righting arm GZ, and leaves the vessel
vulnerable to the forces of wind and sea.

(f) Increase of loads on ship structure

(g) Loss of Ship. Where changes in draft, trim and/ or heel necessary to attain stable
equilibrium are such as to immerse non-watertight portions of a ship, equilibrium will not
be reached because of progressive flooding and the ship will sink either with or without
capsizing.
(Where the loss in is such that the remaining maximum righting arm is less than any
existing heeling arm, capsizing will occur. Even if there were no heeling arm, capsizing
could be expected if the in the damaged condition were negative and if the maximum
righting arm were so small as to result in negative dynamical stability. Practically, even
for symmetrical flooding, there is always some heeling arm due to unsymmetrical
weights and/or wind).

No of bulkheads depends on the length of the ship. The following table gives no of
transverse bulkheads for a passenger ship.

L (m) ENGINE AMIDSHIP ENGINE AFT

< 65 m 4 3

> 65 =85m 4 4

> 85 =105m 5 5

> 105 = 115m 6 5

> 115 =125m 6 6

 > 125 = 145m 7 6

> 145 =165m 8 7

> 165 =190m 9 8

> 190 m should be considered individually

Collision bulkhead – about 0.05L from FP

Notes

 So far the consequence of flooding in a particular compartment has been

studied.
 The problem can be looked at the other way by asking what length of ship can
be flooded without loss of the ship?
 The bulkhead deck is the uppermost weathertight deck to which transverse
watertight bulkheads are carried.

Margin Line
 A margin is desirable and the limit is taken when the waterline is tangent to a line
drawn 76mm (3 inches) below the bulkhead deck at side. This line is called the
margin line.

Floodable Length

The floodable length at any point in the length of the ship is defined as the maximum
portion of the length, having its center at the point in question, that can be symmetrically
flooded at the prescribed permeability, without immersing the margin line, which is
generally 7.5 cm (3 in.) below the top of the bulkhead deck at the side.

usually plotted to a vertical scale equal to the longitudinal scale.

The accurate determination of the floodable length requires an analysis of sinkage, trim,
and heel to determine that the margin line is not immersed.

They are a very valuable tool in the preliminary design stage for any class of ship.
 give the designer a quick visual indication of the probable allowable lengths of
compartments.
 Helps in placing of bulkheads
  Subscripts 0 and 1 to denote the intact ship data for the intact and damaged
waterlines.

 Loss of buoyancy = V1-V0 and this must be at such a position that B1 again below
G.

Hence:

 This then gives the centroid of the lost buoyancy and, knowing (V 1 - V0,) it is
possible to convert this into a length of ship that can be flooded.
 The calculation would be one of reiteration until reasonable figures are obtained.
 The calculations can be repeated for a series of waterlines tangent to the margin
line at different positions along the length. This will lead to a curve of floodable
length shown below:-

The ordinate at any point represents the length which can be flooded with the
centre at the point concerned. Thus if ‘l’ is the floodable length at some point the
positions of bulkheads giving the required compartment length are given by setting off
distances 1/2 ‘l’ either side of the point.

The permeabilities of compartments will affect the floodable length and it is usual to
work out average permeability figures for the machinery spaces and for each of the two
regions forward and aft.
Permeability - The volume permeability of a space is the percentage of the space that
can be occupied by water. Surface permeability is the percentage of a waterplane that
can be occupied by water.

Typical permeability values:-

 0.95 for voids (empty spaces), tanks, and living spaces

 0.85 for machinery spaces
 0.60 for spaces allocated to stores.

Floodable length with permeability

This leads to three curves for the complete ship as shown in Figure. The condition that
a ship should be able to float with any one compartment open to the sea is a minimum
requirement for ocean going passenger ships. The Merchant Shipping Regulations set
out formulae for calculating permeabilities and a factor of subdivision which must be
applied to the floodable length curves giving permissible length.

Criterion of Service. The criterion of service is a numeral intended to express the

degree to which a vessel is a passenger vessel. In principle, a numeral of 23
corresponds to a vessel engaged primarily in carrying cargo, with accommodations for a
small number of passengers, while a numeral of 123 is intended to apply to a vessel
engaged solely, or very nearly so, in the carriage of passengers.

This numeral represents the criterion of service of the ship and takes account of the
number of passengers, the volumes of the machinery and accommodation spaces and
the total ship volume. It decreases in a regular and continuous manner with the ship
length and factors related to whether the ship carries predominantly cargo or
passengers.
The criterion numeral for ships to which this section applies shall be determined by the
following formulae:-

(1) when P1 is greater than P, Cs = 72 (M + 2P1)/ ( V + P1 – P)

(2) and in all other cases Cs = 72 (M + 2P)/V

where - Cs = the criterion numeral;
L = the length of the ship (metres)
M = the volume of the machinery space with the addition of the volume
of any permanent oil fuel bunkers which may be situated above the inner
bottom and before or abaft the machinery space;
V = the volume of ship below the margin line;
N = number of passengers for which the ship is certified
P1 = 0.056L.N
P=The vol of passengers and crew spaces below margin line.

Factor of Subdivision. Broadly, the factor of subdivision ensures that one, two or three
compartments can be flooded before the margin line is immersed leading to what are
called one-, two- or three-compartment ships.

Permissible Length. The permissible length at any point is obtained by multiplying the
floodable length at that point by the factor of subdivision.

The permissible length is the product of the floodable length and the factor of
subdivision. The factor of subdivision depends upon the length of the ship and a
criterion of service numeral or more simply criterion numeral.

That is, compartment standard is the inverse of the factor of subdivision. In general
terms the factor of subdivision decreases with length of ship and is lower for passenger
ships than cargo ships.

The survivability in damage condition is directly related to the main watertight

subdivision below the bulkhead deck.

A first approach to the assessment of the damage condition is to find the floodable
length at a given point of the ship length, multiplied by a number called factor of
subdivision.

 A factor of subdivision equal to 1 means that the margin line should not
submerge if one compartment is submerged

 A factor of subdivision equal to 0.5 means that the margin line should not
submerge when two adjacent compartments are flooded.
This approach is still used for design purposes in order to identify any issues regarding
the location of bulkheads before carrying on further and more complex calculations. The
assessment is based on two assumptions:

o The ship is subject to symmetrical flooding only as the hull is subdivided only
by transverse bulkheads. This is a simplification as the ship subdivision is
usually more complex and includes also longitudinal bulkheads that play a
very important role in the flooding process.

o The method takes into consideration only floatability without checking the
residual stability after damage. It may happen that for certain waterlines
tangent to the margin line the residual stability is insufficient.

Fig – Typical F.L and P.L over a ship’s profile

Damage stability- It is a comprehensive term applying to the calculation of the related

changes in draft, trim, heel, and stability as a result of damage to one or more specific
compartments of a ship.

(It also relates to calculation of the intact stability and buoyancy necessary to attain any
particular assumed equilibrium damaged condition, as well as to the stability
characteristics in that damaged condition.)
WL1 – initial WL, WL2 – Final WL due to flooding
In this figure ∆ is displacement volume to WL, B is initial center of buoyancy, G is initial
center of gravity, v2 is net volume of flooding water upto WL2 (i.e., gross vol. x μ), g2 is
center of gravity of v2, B2 is center of buoyancy of entire immersed volume up to WL2,
∆2 is entire displacement volume to WL2, μ is permeability, the percentage of a space
that can be occupied by water.

Where

Therefore

Transposing and rearranging, one gets

volume and location of the flooding water that would immerse the ship to the
margin line.
Method –
 On a profile drawing showing the margin line and a number of transverse
stations, Bonjean curves are plotted from a low draft to the margin line.
 The subdivision load line is drawn on the profile
 The trim line parallel to the subdivision load line is drawn tangent to the margin
line at its lowest point.
 D be depth from baseline to margin line (at lowest point).
 The draft from baseline to subdivision load line H = 1.6D - 1.57.
 At perpendiculars at the extremities of the subdivision length, the distances H/ 3,
2H/3, and H are laid off and tangents are drawn to the margin line from these
points.
 For example, 3F is the tangent drawn from a point on the after perpendicular at a
distance of H below the parallel trim line.
 The area of each station up to the trim line is first read from the Bonjean curves
 These areas are then integrated by use of Simpson's rule or other rule to obtain
the volume of displacement and the distance of LCB from some convenient
station such as amidships.
