Hazard identification for self-unloading bulk carriers.

Self-Unloading (SUL) bulk carriers are unconventional , designed and provided with various sets of equipment in different set-ups to allow them to discharge the cargo onboard without assistance or interference from any shore facilities or discharging equipment. This variance and complexity of equipment pose hazards to the crew onboard; though many precautions are in place to reduce these hazards, accidents still happen. In this study, a thorough hazard identification process is performed, guided by International Maritime Organization (IMO) Formal Safety Assessment (FSA). The failure Mode Effect and Consequence Analysis (FMECA) method is used to identify the hazards and rank them based on measuring both frequency and severity of each. A novel contribution of this endeavour was to repeat the process of ranking hazard scenarios using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM), thus sharpening the results obtained by FMECA, especially when the qualitative nature of the latter is considered. This study represents a pioneer step towards a full FSA for SUL bulk carriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]