A method to assess the impact of safe return to port regulatory framework on passenger ships concept design

The introduction of the ‘Safe Return to Port’ (SRtP) regulations strongly impacted the design of passenger ships. To meet the functional requirements of these regulations, the systems on board reached an extreme level of complexity in terms of redundancy and segregation, considerably increasing the difficulties to assess the compliance of the designs. However, non-compliant designs are a major risk for every design company which must prevent at all costs the possibility of expensive re-designs in later stages of the process. The aim of this research is to address the gap in the literature and in the market of design support tools, presenting a method to effectively mitigate the risks of non-compliant solutions with SRtP. The method comprises a thorough analysis of the spaces on board and a software tool for the assessment of the correct placement of the systems components. The value of the solution proposed was assessed in two case studies in which the method has been proven capable of effectively identifying the non-compliant solutions in a convenient and time-saving manner. Additional features for the suggestion of solutions to achieve the compliance have been implemented in the tool to further support designers during the complex design process of SRtP projects.