E

SUB-COMMITTEE ON SHIP DESIGN AND SDC 4/5/8

CONSTRUCTION 6 December 2016
4th session Original: ENGLISH
Agenda item 5

FINALIZATION OF SECOND GENERATION INTACT STABILITY CRITERIA

Direct stability assessment

Submitted by Germany

SUMMARY

Executive summary: This document provides an input for discussion and finalization of
the Guidelines for the direct stability assessment in the framework
of the second generation intact stability criteria

Strategic direction: 5.2

High-level action: 5.2.1

Output: 5.2.1.12

Action to be taken: Paragraph 10

Related documents: SDC 3/6, SDC 3/6/2, SDC 3/6/4, SDC 3/6/5, SDC 3/6/6, SDC 3/6/9,
SDC 3/INF.6, SDC 3/INF.7, SDC 3/INF.8, SDC 3/INF.10,
SDC 3/INF.11, SDC 3/INF.12, SDC 3/WP.5 and SDC 3/21;
SDC 4/1, SDC 4/5, SDC 4/5/1 and SDC 4/INF.8

General

1 The framework of the second generation intact stability criteria (SGISC) is based on
three alternative assessment procedures, i.e. level 1 vulnerability assessment, level 2
vulnerability assessment, and a direct stability assessment. The compliance with any of
these assessments is sufficient to fulfil SGISC. For loading conditions failing to fulfil any of
these assessment levels, ship-specific operational limitations or operational guidance can be
developed as an alternative. Whereas levels 1 and 2 vulnerability assessments are close to
finalization, the work on the direct stability assessment has not been completed yet.

2 Bearing in mind that the SGISC significantly differ from the existing intact stability
regulations, a series of concerns need to be addressed regarding robustness and uniformity
of their implementation in the practical approval work.

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Recommendations regarding direct stability assessment

3 Direct stability assessment is based on the simulation of encountered stability failure

events in the time domain, which requires significant computational time. At the same time,
a direct stability assessment is able to take into account all relevant physics in the most
accurate way, thus allowing to address unconventional ship designs. Therefore, to make
the direct stability assessment feasible for practical application, simplifications are required
with respect to probabilistic techniques.

4 Several methods have been proposed so far to reduce the required simulation time,
number of simulations or both. In document SDC 4/INF.8 (Germany), the following two of
such possibilities are considered, with particular emphasis on their accuracy and robustness
in practical design approval:

.1 extrapolation of the time to stability failure over wave height; and

.2 reduction of the number of considered situations to few selected situations.

5 Results of the study demonstrate that the method in paragraph 4.1 above allows
significant reduction of the required computational time; furthermore, the results can be
directly used as an operational guidance. This method leads to sufficiently accurate results in
most cases, but can also lead to some outliers which require manual interruption. It is
important that similar studies are conducted for other available statistical techniques
regarding their accuracy, robustness and feasibility with respect to practical design approval.

6 In the method outlined in paragraph 4.2, the assessment is performed for few
selected situations, defined by ship speed and wave height, direction and period. The use of
this method reduces the required computational time by the order of magnitude compared to
method 4.1. Although these results cannot be used as an operational guidance, it efficiently
reduces the number of loading conditions which may require more extensive simulations to
develop an operational guidance.

7 In document SDC 3/INF.12 (Germany), it was demonstrated that the method in

paragraph 4.2 leads to significant inaccuracies when design situations are selected to cover
several stability failure modes.

8 In document SDC 4/INF.8, it is proposed to use different design situations for

different stability failure modes and the dead ship stability failure in the beam seaway is
considered as an example. The study confirms that this method can lead to accurate results,
without significant scatter between different ships and loading conditions, and is able to
adequately react to changing design parameters. It appears promising, therefore, to apply
the design situations method to other stability failure modes.

9 Even when few selected situations are used in direct stability assessment, long
simulation time may be required if probabilistic safety criteria are used; besides, model tests
cannot be used instead of numerical simulations. In this regard, another simplification was
tested, combining few design situations with non-probabilistic safety criteria, such as average
characteristics of roll motion (SDC 4/INF.8). Such criteria significantly reduce simulation time
and are easy to evaluate in model tests. The results show, however, significant scatter
compared to probabilistic safety measures, which means, basically, that non-probabilistic
measures cannot be used in a direct stability assessment because of expected
inconsistencies. This should be taken into account in the development of direct stability
assessment procedures.

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Action requested of the Sub-Committee

10 The Sub-Committee is invited to note the recommendations in paragraphs 3 to 9

above and take action as appropriate.

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