Conception and evolution of the probabilistic methods for ship damage stability and flooding risk assessment

The paper provides a full description and explanation of the probabilistic method for ship damage stability assessment from its conception to date with focus on the probability of survival (s-factor), explaining pertinent assumptions and limitations and describing its evolution for specific application to passenger ships, using contemporary numerical and experimental tools and data. It also provides comparisons in results between statistical and direct approaches and makes recommendations on how these can be reconciled with better understanding of the implicit assumptions in the approach for use in ship design and operation. Evolution over the latter years to support pertinent regulatory developments relating to flooding risk (safety level) assessment as well as research in this direction with a focus on passenger ships, have created a new focus that combines all flooding hazards (collision, bottom and side groundings) to assess potential loss of life as a means of guiding further research and developments on damage stability for this ship type. The paper concludes by providing recommendations on the way forward for ship damage stability and flooding risk assessment.