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The frequency of marine accidents in Bangladesh is observed to be one of the highest in the world. Maritime disasters in the country took more than 10,000 lives in past three decades. Each time an accident occurs with terrible loss of lives, the issue goes viral through newspapers and social media for several days, and then it is simply consigned to oblivion. Most of the records kept of marine accidents are limited to unsubstantiated news reports with a few exceptions marked in a handful of accidents that were subjected to detailed reporting conducted by maritime authorities. Several research works have been carried out to point out the core reasons behind accidents. But there was a demand of time to find out and represent the sequence of events leading to an accident with the help of a tool more effective than those used in earlier papers. The tool used in this paper is event tree, showing how a single factor, when coupled with other factors or not, is likely to lead to an accident. Despite being a widely-used tool for accident analysis, event tree has been applied for the first time with quantitative study in analyzing maritime accidents in Bangladesh. The research work didn’t end up using event tree as a tool only, but it also conducted a probabilistic analysis. In this research work, the factors, most likely to lead to a disaster, has been identified and then assessed with the data of previous accidents. The probabilistic analysis yielded to the finding that the number of accidents can be reduced considerably if the problem of poor visibility, when the vessel is overloaded, can be solved. The event tree showing the sequence of events will help future researchers and system designers to find out and eliminate the factors contributing to marine accidents and eventually curb the very high frequency of disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The maritime transport system is vital for the economy of Bangladesh. Marine accidents adversely affect the human, the marine environment and properties and activities abroad ships and ashore in various forms and degree of extent. The effects of accidents vary from minor injuries to fatalities and form insignificant damage to very severe damage to the environment and property. During the period 1983 to 2015, thousands of marine accidents have been reported in Bangladesh. The main purpose of every accident study is to provide decision makers with valid and reliable information in order to make informed and hopefully better decisions. In this paper, accident data for passenger vessel collected from Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) are presented and an analysis is carried out to determine the common causes of accidents on passenger vessels. From this paper, it has been observed that the common causes of accidents are collisions and contacts, fire and explosions, overloading, rough weather etc. Finally, based on this study a number of recommendations have been proposed in order to ensure greater safety of passengers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over two decades ship-recycling industry in Bangladesh has received considerable attention via providing raw materials to steel industry, shipbuilding industry and some other industries in Bangladesh and some other countries of South Asia. Bangladesh derives 80-90% of its steel from end-of-life ships. Ship-breaking industries generate a number of employment opportunities for Bangladesh too. Unfortunately, the ship-recycling industry has also gained the attention because of many fatal accidents causing human deaths. This industry affects the environment in some seriously harmful ways. Workers safety, child labor, environmental issues are also threatened by this industry. In some ship-recycling facilities of Bangladesh, children are conducted to various works which violates the rules and regulations of Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BASF). Workers are also being deprived of their rights in some cases. Due to ship-breaking harmful substances like Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP's), asbestos, heavy metals become wide open in the environment which is a threat to the inhabitants. This paper focuses on the Ship Breaking and Recycling Industry (SBRI) of Bangladesh to access its present situation, impact on environment as well as worker rights and safety. The paper also puts light on how Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association (BSBA) reacts to unhygienic, unsafe scrapping facilities and what remedies shall be taken to overcome the challenges of this potential industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Blue Economy is envisaged as an integration of short & long term economic activities and development following principles of social inclusion, environmental sustainability and innovations considered and concentrated on and around the sea. The attitude of achieving long-term prosperity by a country or a region befitting the wellbeing of all citizens and the mankind preserving the environment, especially the sea is the basis of the Blue Economy. The concept of the Blue Economy, a systematic way of utilizing ocean resources, is quite new in South Asia and Bangladesh. This paper is an instigating one, not the findings of rigorous researches but prepared using information, data and works which are available somehow related to the topic and relevant to thoughts and activities in this region. The paper cites a few highlights on how the Blue Economy Concept fit into the sustainability framework does, while balancing its economic, social and environmental benefits and how does it contribute in GDP. The paper aims at generating thoughts and actions towards investigating various opportunities of the Blue Economy, ways of cashing the benefits as well as identifying challenges and ways of overcoming them. The paper concludes that Bangladesh as well as the south Asia has the potentials to follow the Blue Economy Concept. However it requires strong political willingness, commitments, which already have been demonstrated in Bangladesh. It needs rigorous researches and promoting social awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) [1] was introduced by the International Maritime organization (IMO) to stimulate innovation and technical development of all elements that increase the level of energy efficiency of a ship at design stage. Sea going ships over 400 gross tonnage are considered in the current regulation of EEDI. Inland ships are not covered by current EEDI regulations by IMO. As inland vessels share 0.6% of the global CO 2 emission [2] , the reduction attempt will not have bigger impact. But from the commercial point of view of a country the significance is very high, specially for under developed countries like Bangladesh. Inland self propelled ships face additional restrictions (shallow water/channel, low density water, restriction of ship's dimension, etc.) which increase the power requirement at the same speed, burning more fuel and emit more CO 2 . This paper is a continuation of the Ph.D research of the author where previous published paper's [3] results were updated and verified. The result of this paper would be one of the 1 st attempts in the world was made to establish EEDI baseline for different types of self-propelled inland ships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy harvesting is the process of acquiring energy surrounding a system and converting it into usable electrical energy. Researchers have put much effort into energy conversion and recent researchers have discovered that piezoelectric materials are one of the best option in energy conversion from mechanical into electrical or vice versa.Piezoelectric materials have a crystalline structure that provides them with the ability to transform mechanical strain energy into electrical charge and vice versa. This property provides these materials with the ability to absorb mechanical energy from their surroundings, usually ambient vibration, and transform it into electrical energy that can be used to power other devices. In this paper, vibration is presented as a source for conversion and also the availability of it in Bangladesh. A short survey statistics on the number of industries in Bangladesh and the vibration energy level is shown in in this paper. The harvested energy found from vibration is 2.96 V by conducting an experiment in the lab. Due to dual polarity of output voltage, an ac-dc converter is used and finally the energy is saved in battery through a charging circuit for later uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An accelerated wave of urbanization and the rapid population growth are brutally transmuting the urban fabric of Dhaka city, Bangladesh. These rampant growth combined with climatic changes are triggering an increase in vulnerability of communities to hazardous events like flood, earthquake, fire hazards, water logging. In recent years water logging has become an increasingly prevailing burden for the city dwellers and is creating adverse social, physical, economic and environmental consequences by disruption of regular life, traffic paralysis, infrastructure damage, destruction of flora and fauna. Once long awaited monsoon now has become a nightmare of facing extensive water logging during the months from May to October (monsoon). Dhaka’s water web, which was once integrated into the city’s fabric as warp and woof had a major contribution in its drainage capacity. But due to unplanned growth and water body encroachment, the water bodies are rapidly disappearing and impermeable surface are increasing. Different development agencies and government organizations are working on this issue but incorporation of urban and landscape design to solve water logging of Dhaka is often ignored or overlooked. Current consideration primarily focuses on functional and operational aspects of the municipal infrastructure. Even if urban designers and landscape architects are incorporated in such projects, their contributions are mostly limited to the beautification without considering an integrated municipal network of rivers and their respective impacts. This underutilization of the respective professional intervention results in increased water logging disaster and pluvial flooding that is inundated for several days. The study attempts to explore the causes influencing the water logging disaster in Dhaka and understand its impacts on quality of life in order to utilize the scope of urban and landscape design at its fullest capacity to water logging disaster risk reduction as well as increase the quality life for city dwellers. Lastly, the paper recommends various scopes for inclusion of urban design-demonstrated framework such as revival and preservation of water bodies, introduction of rain garden, designing permeable and semi-permeable ground surface etc. to alleviate the risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are around 2,500 cyclone shelters and multipurpose cyclone shelters along the 710 km long coast of Bangladesh. They have gradually been constructed since the devastating cyclone of 1970 to provide a safe haven facility for the coastal population. Constructed by various agencies the shelters are heterogeneous in many aspects; i.e. Funding conditions, location, design, footprint, construction material and technique, and construction process, etc. Until now, spatial distribution of cyclone shelters; structural strength analysis; catchment area; and management issues have dictated design of the shelters. Preliminary research by the authors shows that accessibility and inclusiveness of the shelters by incorporating opinions and requirements of the stakeholders have not been considered in most cases. This paper presents the rationale, process and findings of a pilot study that assessed multipurpose cyclone shelters for their inclusiveness. A simple random sampling method was used to select the case study shelters. An assessment protocol was developed to evaluate each case study shelter for their inclusiveness. Initial findings show that design of the cyclone shelters failed to address requirements of disabled and older population group; gender discrimination; and specific requirement of the local farmers. By incorporating widely accepted inclusive design principles and design standards the shelters can be made more user-friendly, accessible and inclusive and help to a supportive built environment for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme Weather Events continue to cause shocking losses of life and long-term damage at scales, depths and complexities that elude robust and accountable calculation, expression and reparation. Cyclones and storm surges can wipe out entire towns, and overwhelm vulnerable built and lived environments. It was storm surges that was integral to the destructive power of Hurricane Katrina in the USA (2005), Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (2013), as well as Cyclone Nargis (2008) and the 1970 Bhola Cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. This paper report on work which concerns itself with the question of, given what we know already about such extreme weather events, and their associated critical infrastructure impacts and recovery trajectories, what scenarios, insights and tools might we develop to enable critical infrastructures which are resilient? With several of the world’s most climate vulnerable cities situated in well-peopled and rapidly growing urban areas near coasts, our case study of Khulna City speaks globally into a resilience discourse, through critical infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, through spatial data science and high visualisation. With a current population of 1.4 million estimated to rise to 2.9 million by 2030, dense historical Khulna City may well continue to perform a critical role in regional economic development and as well as a destination for environmental refugees. Working as part of the EU—CIRCLE consortium 1 , we conduct a case study into cyclones and storm surges affecting the critical infrastructure then discuss salient developments of loss modelling. The research aims to contribute towards a practical framework that stimulates adaptive learning across multiple stakeholders and organisational genres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to evaluate EEDI for inland vessels in Bangladesh. To assess the present situation of inland class vessels in terms of CO2 emission, 526 cargo ships, 247 passenger ships, 70 oil tankers and 36 ferries have been taken in this study. The formulated baseline equations based on the study of different types of Inland vessels have been compared with the IMO evaluated baseline equations for International Shipping. The effect of EEDI with respect to vessels draft, type of fuel, block coefficient, specific fuel consumption (SFC) and power has also been investigated. Finally, some viable recommendations have been proposed to reduce the detrimental effects of C02 emission by optimizing hull shape of some existing vessels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept ‘blue economy’ refers to ocean based economies. It encompasses conservation in tandem with sustainable usages of maritime resources through seamless and integrate spatial planning. Blue economy transforms the ocean resources into development instruments. In latter days, the realm of Bay of Bengal has veered into a synonym of economic and strategic significance. Settlement of maritime boundary disputes and the potentials of blue economy prospects are spearheading its littoral states for economic growth. However, like other ocean regions, the Bay of Bengal is also rigged with the problems of IUU fishing, marine pollution, ineffective marine regulation and the non-traditional security menace. The proposed paper endeavours to analyse how Bangladesh, as one of the littoral states of the Bay of Bengal region, is responding to the challenges of ocean governance and revving up initiatives to garner blue economy benefits from the Bay of Bengal. The article also highlights the vista and potentials of regional cooperation in the blue economy related areas such as regulation of coastal marine environment; marine protected areas; maritime safety as well as security of ports and sea lanes of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Main source of energy fuel in Bangladesh is natural gas and day by day it is trimming the proven reserves. There are provisions of potential renewable energy resources like the solar, wind, tidal etc.; but the initiatives are very slow. Coal reserves and their prospects could not assure the nation as there are proven coal reserves of about 4,750 Mt (equivalent to 975 GM 3 of gas, which is around 3 times greater than the present gas reserve in Bangladesh). Those coal reserves are discovered in the North-Western part of Bangladesh at the depth ranging 200-1100 m. The special feature of the coal seams are found in the same geological formation and thickness is high (on average 38-64 m).One of the major issues, is the minable amount of the resources in conventional mining method. Barapukuria coal mine is under operation since 2005 and running a 250 MW coal fired power plant. But the mining method is not yet proven as suitable one, due to jointed layer thick coal seam (51 m) with faulty overburden and wider aquifer zone. The underground mining environment is hazardous including high temperature, suffocative humidity and releasing of unpredictable carboneus gases from the coal faces which make the life expectancy of this mine questionable. The geographical position and climatic conditions of Bangladesh, especially the monsoon rain extends several weeks to months which are major setback for economic viability of the open striping mining. The policy makers still could not finalize the national coal policy. In this stage the government is stepping up for construction of coal fired power stations run by imported coal. A group of skilled and dedicated entrepreneur is seeking the pathways for exploiting unminable coals within a safe engineering framework and bringing the global Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) projects under the same umbrella. India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Japan even the Vietnam has already joined the cohort. But why not Bangladesh, though they have huge amount of coal reserves which are not minable in conventional methods. This paper presents a review on development of this technology, investigates the geology and formation of the deposits and seeks suitability of the gasification methods as a sustainable engineering model considering social, environmental & economic issues, which may be helpful for fore stepping towards unconventional coal extraction activity for combating energy crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some of the ways of designing a green room with respect to energy efficiency. For design purpose, a model office room of typical dimensions was chosen and its electrical energy consumption under prescribed conditions was evaluated over a year by means of computer simulation. Then, the possibilities of providing the stipulated electrical energy demand solely from solar and wind sources were ascertained. The yields of grid connected solar photovoltaic cells that could be commensurately accommodated on the roof of the room were calculated over a year, via simulation. For wind energy analysis, a wind energy calculator software was made, that can provide dynamic energy calculations, take in wind speed data from anywhere within the computer and at the same time log useful yield data in real time. The simulation results indicated that the designed system could account for an impressive 15% energy demand of the room. The wind energy calculator software predicted results to considerable accuracy when compared to known performances of wind turbines present in Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around 1.4 million solar home systems are already installed by February 2013 in Bangladesh. In this paper, the energy and emission of solar home systems installed in Bangladesh are analyzed based on the field visit at the six different districts in Bangladesh. Study has been conducted for 40∼85 W p systems as these systems are mostly used in the rural user level. Total primary energy requirement including energy requirement for manufacturing and energy required to replace its components in the estimated project life 20 years are calculated. On the other hand, energy supply by a SHS in its entire life time is also evaluated based on monitoring of selected SHSs. Energy payback period for 40, 50, 65, 75 and 85 systems are found to be 6.94, 7.47, 7.80, 7.32 and 6.91 years respectively. It is also revealed from the study that 1.4 million solar home systems in Bangladesh can mitigate 0.8 million ton of CO 2 per year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the prospect of biodiesel from rice bran in Bangladesh. Rice bran is the non-edible portion of paddy. It can be easily collected from the rice husk of the paddy. The estimated production of paddy in Bangladesh in year 2010-11 is about 33.54 million metric ton (source: BBS). If 18-20 wt% rice is rice husk then the amount of rice husk becomes 6.71 million metric ton. This rice husk contains about 16 to 20% of crude rice bran oil of its weight. An estimate of about 1.34 million metric ton of crude rice bran oil can be obtained annually. The current consumption of Petroleum Products in Bangladesh is 3.7 MT/annum and annual growth rate is 4% (source: BPC). Diesel consumption in Bangladesh is about 2.4 MT/annum. If the estimated amount of rice bran oil (RBO) is converted into biodiesel, this can satisfy 60-70% of our diesel need. This study involves the investigation of oil properties collected from rice bran to ensure the production of biodiesel by the well-known transesterification process. In order to inveterate the clarity of cost of biodiesel production, the aim fix with the determination of fuel properties, economic analysis and comparison with other non-edible sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The quality engineering education is not only challenging but also of paramount importance in today's globalised world. Despite inheriting western engineering education system, the engineering and technological qualifications obtained in Bangladesh are not readily recognized globally mainly due to the absence of periodical accreditation and quality assurance processes. The recently created Board of Accreditation for Engineering and Technical Education (BAETE) under the Institution of Engineers Bangladesh (IEB) has become a provisional member of Washington Accord. However, it needs to develop and implement accreditation process as par the signatory countries. This paper provides a comprehensive accreditation process followed by a Washington Accord Signatory nation and highlights the steps that can be undertaken within the institution to enhance the quality of education and graduates’/students’ satisfaction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]