Characterisation of the flooding process of a damaged Ro-Ro vessel

Recent research at the University of Strathclyde culminated in the development of a numerical procedure for assessing the damage survivability of damaged Ro-Ro vessels. Using this as a basis, new survival criteria have been proposed and submitted to IMO for consideration by the international shipping community. This paper presents the results of a fundamental study aimed at enhancing insight into one of the most dominant parameters affecting the survival of a Ro-Ro vessel, the water accumulation on the vehicle deck. The investigation represents an attempt to identify the most important contributing factors to the flooding process by performing a series of experiments using a scaled model of a typical Ro-Ro vessel. The matrix considered involves a range of ship design and environmental parameters in a number of simplified damage scenarios, building up to the more realistic damages in a way that allows for isolation of individual contributions to the water accumulation on the Ro-Ro deck. The results of the experiments, supplemented by and contrasted with results of numerical simulations, are presented and discussed, leading to recommendations for characterising the flooding process for general assessment of damage survivability