Risk assessment of sea chest fouling on the ship machinery systems by using both FMEA method and ERS process

ABSTRACT

Sea pollution has negative consequences and has an impact on the marine ecosystem and ship machinery processes. The main risk of sea pollution on ship is based on sea chests that are used for ballast water and firefighting. In addition to this, sea chest fouling, which primarily forms as a result of pollution, has an impact on the ship machinery, navigation in waterways, and the environment. The possibility of failure related to sea chest fouling issues in seawater cooling systems used to cool ship machinery parts were investigated in this study. Significant defects in the cooling and related engine systems were determined using both a full-mission Kongsberg engine room simulator (ERS) process and failure modes and effects (FMEA) technique, which relied on expert judgments within the cause–effect relationship. According to the findings, sea chest pollution has a direct impact on the ships’ cooling water systems and other related components, causes power losses, and leads the main engine to shut down, resulting in the ship losing maneuverability. As a result of these circumstances, the risk of catastrophic events such as grounding, contact, collision, flooding, fire explosion, and others was determined.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank marine engineering experts who have worked on different types of commercial ships in the maritime sector for supporting this research. This study was funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK ) ARDEB 1001 Grant No 121G107.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey [TUBITAK ARDEB 1001 Grant No: 121G107].

Notes on contributors

Bulut Ozan Ceylan

Bulut Ozan Ceylan is studying on his Ph.D. education at the Department of Marine Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, and working in the Department of Marine Engineering, Bandirma Onyedi Eylül University as a research assistant. His research fields are ship safety, accident analysis, failure analysis, risk analysis, tanker ships, boiler operations, system engineering, complex systems, marine diesel engines, engine room simulators, fuzzy logic, expert systems, maintenance of ship machinery systems, ship energy efficiency, ship emissions, port state controls, and marine engineering training. He has published papers in SCI journals and has presented his research at international conferences. He is an oceangoing first engineer and worked on different types of tanker ships.

Çağlar Karatuğ

Çağlar Karatuğ is studying on his Ph.D. education at the Department of Marine Engineering/Istanbul Technical University and also working in the same department as a research assistant. Currently, He conduct his academic studies at the Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering of Instituto Superior Tecnico, the University of Lisbon as a visiting researcher. He is interested in ship energy efficiency, implementation of renewable energy sources to ships, alternative marine fuels, emission reduction strategies, machine learning applications in ship operations, and maintenance of ship machinery systems.

Emir Ejder

Emir Ejder (b. 1990) is a PhD student in Maritime Transportation Engineering at Istanbul Technical University (ITU) Graduate School in Turkey. Ejder has a master's degree in Maritime Transportation Engineering from ITU (2020) and works as an oceangoing 1st engineer on tanker ships.

Tayfun Uyanık

Tayfun Uyanık graduated from the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, in 2013. After graduation, he finished the Graduate School of Applied and Natural Sciences, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, in 2017. His Ph.D. education continues at the İstanbul Technical University, and he is a guest PhD student in Aalborg University, Energy Department. His working topics are electrical engineering applications, machine learning, deep learning, control engineering applications, electromagnetic compatibility, ship electric grids, and renewable energy sources.

Yasin Arslanoğlu

Prof. Yasin Arslanoğlu is head of Maritime Transportation Engineering (MTE) Graduate Prog. and also Basic Sciences dept. in ITU. He teaches environmental courses, maritime chemistry, education, energy efficiency, and machine learning. He conducted 2 national projects as a researcher, and 1 as a coordinator, published 40 papers in reputable international journals, and more than 40 international conference papers in proceedings (h-index 12, more than 400 citations in WoS/WoK). He has been supervising studies on maritime chemistry, environmental management, machine learning, and ship energy efficiency.