Fault Tree Analysis of Fires in Ship Machinery Rooms

Abstract

There are many studies on statistics of marine accidents and analyses of individual ones. However, there are few papers which were made based on systems point of view. Consequently, in this paper, systematic analyses to fires in ships are carried out by applying fault tree analysis (FTA), which is a useful tool of systems engineering. From the results of the analysis, recommendations are provided to improve the structure and equipments of machinery rooms for preventing fires in relation to marine laws and regulations. A drastic measure is to set up an effective overflow pipe to fuel oil service tank, which is obligated only by N.K. rule. Finally it is shown that FTA is applicable not only to systematic analysis of marine accidents but also to safety and reliability analysis of ships.