Page 34 - Practical Design Ships and Floating Structures

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safety system of shipping companies and ensuring their safety system to be in compliance with
international standards. Under IMO Resolution A. 739 (18) and A. 789 (19), class is carrying out
survey authorized by flag administrations and consequently taking its share of risk.
Self-discipline and continuously improving its survey and assessment method should comply with
quality shipping requirements. QSCS (Quality System Certification Scheme) is one of the major stcp
forward taken by IACS in this respect, including establishing Codc of Ethics, Vertical Contract Audit,
Enhanced Survey Program, Transfer of Class Agreement, and recently contributing to Condition
Assessment Scheme. Some of the above are made mandatory by IMO.

3.4 Development of ship mid offshore insfallafions design standards in 21st century

As mentioned above, the international maritime world has come to know the fact that safety culture is
taking form. Maritimc safety culture and standard making are complimentary. Maritime safety culture
has affected the development of ship and offshore installations design standards in the following
aspects.

Risk management has been introduced into design standards, which indicates that a completely
technical standard is not sufficient, while comprehensive, economics-wise standards in compliance
with basic safety standard are needed. FSA is applied as one of the major methodologies regarding risk
management, which has a significant influence on rules and regulations. Now, FSA is applied to areas
of explosion prevention, fire protection, collision.and grounding prevention.

The information technology (IT) and database developments have led to changes in design standards
for ships and offshore structures. The following research areas with IT development have achieved
substantial progress.
- design within the ships’ life, such as
fatigue design,
crack extension design,
ultimate strength design;
- application of new materials including consideration for geometry non-linearity, material non-
1 inearity;
- wave-loading from 2D linear, 2D non-linear to 3D linear, 3D non-linear;
- transportation under high or low temperature for asphalt carrier, LPG and LNG;
- vessels of special purposes such as SWATH and WPC;
- direct calculation of vessels of large size, such as VLCC, ULCC, large sized bulk carriers and
container vessels.

Great progress has been made in terms of techniques, such as application of high tensile steel,
segmented and integrated construction, laser, equal-hydronium welding, cutting welding robots to the
following areas (Wu Yousheng et. al., 1999):

- Moulding technics simulation;
- Precision control design;
- Disfigurement disciplinarian prediction;
- Improvement of fatigue strength at nodes by Titania Inertia Gas (TIG) and ultrasonic technology.