NAM 455
Marine Risk and Safe Limits Estimation
Introduction
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Course Contents
• Introduction and definition of main risks.
• Risk Assessment: qualitative and quantitative risk
assessment.
• Hazard identification.
• Accident consequences.
• Tolerability of risk and ALARP(As Low As Reasonably
Practicable) principle.
• Safety in design.
• Formal safety assessment.
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Today
• Risk Concept
• Acceptable Risk
• Maritime Risk
• Maritime Activity
• Maritime Accidents and Consequences
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Naval architects and marine engineers have key roles in the
design and building of ships and thereby have considerable
impact on safety.
In many respects the engineering profession is focusing primarily
on safety: hull strength , stability and vessel controllability.
But the engineers are also working on the interface between
systems and humans: navigating bridge, engine control room
and related systems.
However, the requirements of efficient building and
maintenance processes are often given higher priority than
ergonomic and human factors considerations
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The Risk Concept
• The concept of risk stands central in any discussion of safety.
With reference to a given system or activity, the term ‘safety’
is normally used to describe the degree of freedom from
danger , and the risk concept is a way of evaluating This .
• The term ‘risk’ is, however, not only used in relation to
evaluating the degree of safety and, as outlined in Table 1, the
risk concept can be viewed differently depending on the
context.
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Table 1
Aspect Comments
Psychological People often relate to risk in a subjective and
sometimes irrational way. Some people are even
attracted to risk.
Values/ Risk can be perceived in the light of fundamental
ethics human values; life is sacred, one should not
experiment with nature, and every individual has
a responsibility for ensuring safety.
Legal Risks and safety are to a large degree controlled
by laws and regulations, and people might
therefore be liable for accidents they cause.
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Complexity The nature of accidents is difficult to understand
because so many influencing factors and elements
are involved: machines, people , environment,
physical processes and organizations.
Randomness There is often a fine line between safe and unsafe
operation. A lack of system understanding may
lead to a feeling that accidents happen at random.
Delayed It is difficult to see the cause and effect
feedback mechanism and thereby whether introduced
safety measures have a positive effect on safety.
Some measures even must be applied for a
considerable time before they have a real effect
on system safety.
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• Risk is often calculated for all relevant hazards, hazards being
the possible events and conditions that may result in
severity.
For example, a hazard with a high probability of occurrence
and a high consequence has a high level of risk, and a high
level of risk corresponds to a low-level safety for the system
under consideration. The opposite will be the case for a hazard
with a low probability and a low consequence. Safety is
evaluated by summing up all the relevant risks for a specific
system .
• An important question is how people relate to and
understand the concept of risk.
Table 2 gives a brief overview of some of the factors that
determine the subjectively experienced and perceived risk.
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In performing risk analyses, engineers should always keep these
subjective aspects in mind so as to improve communication
with different individuals/groups and be able to achieve
mutual understanding of complicated safety issues, etc.
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Table 2
Different perception of risk
Factor Negative=> higher Positive=> lower
perceived risk perceived risk
Is the hazard involuntary Voluntary
confronted because
of a personal choice
or decision?
Is the consequences Immediate Delayed
(effect) of the act
evident?
Is the cause-and- Uncertain certain
effect mechanism
clear to the decision
-maker?
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Factor Negative=> higher Positive=> lower
perceived risk perceived risk
Is the individual in a No alternatives Alternatives
presses situation that
leaves no alternatives?
Does the decision- No control Have control
maker experience some
degree of control?
Risk at work in not the Occupational Hoppy, sport
same as risk in your
spare time ?
Is the risk unknown in ‘Dread’ hazard Common
the sense that it is
seldom or still not
experienced ?
Are the consequences Irreversible Reversible
given once and for all?
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Acceptable Risk
Some might argue that any risk is unacceptable. This view is
questioned by Rowe (1983), who gives the following reasons for
the opposite standpoint (i.e. that some risks are indeed
acceptable):
• Threshold condition: a risk is perceived to be so small that it can
be ignored.
• Status quo condition: a risk is uncontrollable or unavoidable
without major disruption in lifestyle.
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• Regulatory condition: a credible organization with
responsibility for health and safety has, through due
process, established an acceptable risk level.
• De facto condition: a historic level of risk continues to be
acceptable.
• Voluntary balance condition: a risk is deemed by a risk-
taker as worth the benefits.
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Our attitude to risk is also reflected by our views on why
accidents happen. Art, literature and oral tradition all
reflect a number of beliefs that are rooted in culture and
religion (see also Kouabenan, 1998):
• Act of God: an extreme interruption with a natural cause (e.g.
earthquake, storm, etc.).
• Punishment: people are punished for their sins by accidents.
• Conspiracy: someone wants to hurt you.
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• Accident proneness: some people are pursued by bad luck all
the time. They involved in more than their fair share of
accidents.
• Fate: ‘‘What is written in the stars, will happen.’’ You cannot
escape your fate.
• Mascots: an amulet may protect you against hazards.
• Black cat: you should sharpen your attention.
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Maritime Risk
• An accident can be defined as an undesirable event that
results in damage to humans, assets and/or the
environment.
• In order to get an understanding of the characteristics of
maritime accidents we need insight into the maritime risk
picture, and this part present some of the key issues and
central elements of this risk picture, including some
introductory observations on why accidents happen in the
maritime domain.
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Definitions
Risk topics will examine a wide range of related issues, such as
reliability analysis, risk analysis and safety management,
and in this context some definitions of key concepts must
be presented (Stephenson, 1991):
• Hazards: possible events and conditions that may result
in severity, i.e. Cause significant harm.
• RAM analysis: reliability, availability and maintainability
analysis.
• Reliability: the ability of a system or component to perform
certain defined functions.
• Risk: an evaluation of hazards in terms of severity and
probability.
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• Safety: the degree of freedom from danger and harm. Safety
is achieved by doing things right the first time and every time.
• Safety management: keeping an operation safe through
systematic and safety minded organization and management
of both human and physical resources.
• Systems safety: the discipline that utilizes systems
engineering and management techniques to make systems
safe throughout their life-cycle.
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Maritime Activity
Maritime activities have had, • Fishing
and still have, an important • Marine farming
role in the business, trade • Continental shelf operations
and economy of many
(i.e. oil and gas):
countries. The key areas of
maritime activities include: • Rig operations
• Maritime transport: • Supply services
• Coastal shipping • Pipeline laying
• Transport of people both • Underwater activities
inland and overseas • Science and survey
• International shipping
• Cruise shipping
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Maritime Accidents and Consequences
• These activities have several positive attributes, such as
employment, production, creation of values and fortune,
spreading economic consequences, positive influences on
currency and exchange transactions, etc. There is,
however, a price for these benefits in terms of negative
effects. Some of the typical hazards found in maritime
activities are outlined in Table 3.
Maritime accidents may lead to three different kinds of
consequences:
• Harm to human beings: injuries and fatalities.
• Environmental pollution.
• Economic losses: damage or loss of vessel and cargo, lost
income, etc. 20
• There is no simple answer to why accidents happen in
maritime activities. It will be pointed out later in this part that
accidents are complex phenomena, and usually no simple
solutions exist to prevent them.
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Threats and hazards in maritime activities
Maritime sector Hazards
Shipping Dangerous cargo, fire, explosion, poisoning,
environmental damage,
Ocean environment and weather
Substandard ships and substandard shipowners
Difficult to control safety due to its international character
Fishing relatively small vessels with critical features (e.g. hatches)
ocean environment and weather
operation in coastal waters- grounding and steep waves
partly one-person activities (increases vulnerability if
something happens)
development of damage and flooding is fast
lack of training
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Offshore many new kinds of activities, limited experience, and
knowledge
high pace of development work and construction
continuous development of technology and ways of
operation
large concentrations of energy resulting in high fire
and explosion risk
high utilization of the space on platforms
Diving Increasing water depth (high pressure , difficult to
control)
Lack of knowledge about physiological factor
Ocean environment- splash zone risks
New work processes
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