This research looks at moisture uptake and its effects on the flexural properties of glass reinforced epoxy, linseed oil and castor oil composites. Water uptake damages the material through chemical, physical and mechanical ageing. At the same time there is a need to reduce the environmental effects of the maritime industry and using composites from renewable resources could be a viable solution. While the conventional composites like glass/epoxy are trusted as a structural material in harsh humid conditions, there is very little known about more sustainable composite materials. As resins have a greater environmental impact when manufactured, and no information on their long term performance is available, this research looks at the flexural performance of glass reinforced castor and linseed oil resins over 2 years of ageing in comparison with glass/epoxy. As a result of accelerated ageing it has been shown that the degradation of all three composites is significant, ranging between 18{87% over the 2 year testing period. The moisture equilibrium content in glass/epoxy was 2.11%, glass/castor oil 3.62% and glass/linseed oil 2.87%. While the moisture uptake of glass/epoxy follows an expected trend, the moisture uptake of plant oil based resin composites does not and differs from conventional models. After 2 years of ageing the properties of glass/castor oil are comparable with glass/epoxy. The degradation of properties in glass/linseed oil is the greatest. MicroCT and AE techniques were used to look at the failure modes in glass/epoxy and glass/linseed oil specimens showing changes in the failure mode of glass/linseed oil only after 3 days of ageing. The failure modes of glass/epoxy were found to be mainly fibre dominated and most of the damage occurred on the tensile side of the specimens while the failure in glass/linseed oil was largely dominated by compressive damage. For the first time the failure mechanisms of glass/linseed oil have been proposed.

With world shipping and other maritime based industries tending to operate assets requiring a large capital investment representing over half the total operating cost of the vessel, considering life extension at the end of a structure’s design life can postpone further capital investment and reduce the yearly operating costs of a particular asset for the owner. Despite this experience the concept of asset life extension for continued use once design life is exceeded is one which has been covered in very limited detail in the academic community. In more recent years the concept of asset life extension has become important to a growing number of maritime industries and as such has become an industry lead area for investigation, with the lead being taken by the Health and Safety Executive in the UK and other regulatory bodies abroad. The work presented here describes the investigations into life extension assessment of assets, with a special focus on the Severn class lifeboat fleet owned by the RNLI, who wish to assess the potential for life extension of this fleet to enable the continued use of a successful asset and offset a £120 million replacement program. The vessels themselves are a monolithic stiffened composite construction with a design life of 25 years. A methodology is devised which uses material static and fatigue data, environmental conditions and structural response data to determine the expected useful life of a composite structure. This methodology is then applied to the Severn class fleet by conducting experiments to determine the fatigue life of the materials through coupon tests, understanding the environmental conditions and the errors involved in predicting them and carrying out measurements of the structural response of a Severn class lifeboat whilst in service. Combining these variables using Monte Carlo simulations and the Miner’s rule allows an estimate of the useful life of the asset to be made.

No description available.

Inland waterways have proven to be a significant mode of infrastructure for the carriage of freight. Examples of this can be seen in many developed regions such as Continental Europe, the United States of America and to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. The benefit resulting from the existence of waterways are enormous in both transportational and non-transportational benefits. Hence there are considerable benefits which will result from a sustained development of waterways. This study identifies all relevant parameters associated with the waterways system. They include the waterway route, the barge provision to carry the cargo and terminal facilities as an interface point for cargo handling operations. Methods have been determined to enable various costs to be estimated. This estimating procedure can be very useful for a preliminary evaluation of development proposals pending a more detailed cost analysis. Estimated benefits can also be quantified at this preliminary stage. Data has been collected from a number of reliable sources. Models have successfully been generated and each model has been validated to an acceptable level of accuracy. The analysis has been applied to a proposed development of an inland waterway transportation system in the Klang Valley region of Malaysia. The results indicate viability for the scheme and, moreover, show the degree to which designers and planners can benefit from the use of the models.

Marine engineering operations rely substantially on high degrees of automation and supervisory control. This brings new opportunities as well as the threat of erroneous human actions, which account for 80-90% of marine incidents and accidents. In this respect, shipping environments are extremely vulnerable. As a result, decision makers and stakeholders have zero tolerance for accidents and environmental damage, and require high transparency on safety issues. The aim of this research is to develop a novel quantitative Human Reliability Assessment (HRA) methodology using the Cognitive Reliability and Error Analysis Method (CREAM) in the maritime industry. This work will facilitate risk assessment of human action and its applications in marine engineering operations. The CREAM model demonstrates the dynamic impact of a context on human performance reliability through Contextual Control Model controlling modes (COCOM-CMs). CREAM human action analysis can be carried out through the core functionality of a method, a classification scheme and a cognitive model. However, CREAM has exposed certain practical limitations in its applications especially in the maritime industry, including the large interval presentation of Human Failure Probability (HFP) values and the lack of organisational factors in its classification scheme. All of these limitations stimulate the development of advanced techniques in CREAM as well as illustrate the significant gap between industrial needs and academic research. To address the above need, four phases of research study are proposed. In the first phase, the adequacy of organisation, one of the key Common Performance Conditions (CPCs) in CREAM, is expanded by identifying the associated Performance Influencing Factors (PIFs) and sub-PIFs in a Bayesian Network (BN) for realising the rational quantification of its assessment. In the second phase, the uncertainty treatment methods' BN, Fuzzy Rule Base (FRB) , Fuzzy Set (FS) theory are used to develop new models and techniques' that enable users to quantify HFP and facilitate the identification of possible initiating events or root causes of erroneous human action in marine engineering operations. In the third phase, the uncertainty treatment method's Evidential Reasoning (ER) is used in correlation with the second phase's developed new models and techniques to produce the solutions to conducting quantitative HRA in conditions in which data is unavailable, incomplete or ill-defined. In the fourth phase, the CREAM's prospective assessment and retrospective analysis models are integrated by using the established Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method based on, the combination of Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP), entropy analysis and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). These enable Decision Makers (DMs) to select the best developed Risk Control Option (RCO) in reducing HFP values. The developed methodology addresses human actions in marine engineering operations with the significant potential of reducing HFP, promoting safety culture and facilitating the current Safety Management System (SMS) and maritime regulative frameworks. Consequently, the resilience of marine engineering operations can be further strengthened and appreciated by industrial stakeholders through addressing the requirements of more safety management attention at all levels. Finally, several real case studies are investigated to show end users tangible benefits of the developed models, such as the reduction of the HFPs and optimisation of risk control resources, while validating the algorithms, models, and methods developed in this thesis.

Thesis (Masters Diploma (Mechanical Engineering)) -- Cape Technikon, Cape Town,1996 / A need exists whereby the preliminary power requirement of a ship can be rapidly estimated. Because the majority of methods available for this purpose are manual and consist of a number of independent components, they are tedious and time consuming to use. With the advent of the personal computer and its widespread acceptance, it was logical to examine the various components involved to determine their suitability for computerisation and general accuracy. In total eleven hull resistance prediction methods were examined, eight of which were computerised. Model test data of four vessels were used to evaluate these eight programs. The methodproviding the best results was selected to form the core of an integrated Power Prediction program. Factors such as appendage resistance, fouling and hull roughness were examined and appropriate methods selected for inclusion into the integrated program. Various propeller series were examined and evaluated against a variety of examples and model data. Two propeller optimisation programs were written and a general method for determining the optimum characteristics from Kr-KQ polynomials is described. Methods for determining propulsion coefficients were examined and their results compared with those obtained from model tests. The method providing the best overall results was incorporated into the Power Prediction program Added resistance due to sea state was broken down into two components, namely wind and wave resistance. Only the head sea and wind conditions were considered. Various methods for estimating wind resistance were examined and a program developed capable of providing resistance estimates regardless of wind direction. The problem of added resistance due to waves was examined and two programs written around the methods examined. To facilitate prediction estimates, sea state was chosen as the prime function. Wave height is estimated for the appropriate sea state and wind speed in turn from the wave height Actual sea trial data ofa twin screw channel ship is used to determine the overall accuracy ofthe Power Prediction Program

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are a developing technology with multiple applications including oceanographic research, military missions and commercial activities such as oil and gas field exploration. The reported research covers two main areas, namely, the assessment of the survey performance of AUVs and the development of the next generation of multi-purpose AUVs. The performance characteristics of long range survey-style AUVs are examined and improvements in performance are sought through the use of hybrid devices. Hybrid devices are defined as those that provide both propulsion and manoeuvring forces. Two devices were chosen for detailed investigation; a vectored thruster and a collective and cyclic pitch propeller. The manoeuvring performance of both devices was found to be insufficient to justify the additional engineering complexity associated with them. The aim of the next generation of AUVs is to be able to combine long range survey capabilities with low speed investigation of the environment encountered. An assessment of a likely mission profile and a review of the available design options demonstrate that maintaining the survey efficiency of the AUV is of principal importance. Therefore the investigation focuses on approaches to the addition of low speed control to an existing survey-style AUV design using propeller based thrusters. Externally mounted thrusters and through-body tunnel thrusters are reviewed and new experimental investigations are reported to provide insight into the performance characteristics on a survey-style AUV hull form. The main body of the experimental programme characterises forward and aft mounted tunnel thruster performance over a range of forward speeds and small yaw angles. The results are used to develop a new, simple modelling procedure representing the performance of tunnel thrusters on an AUV which facilitates the incorporation of the characteristics of tunnel thrusters into numerical simulations of AUV performance. Such a simulation is used to examine approaches to undertaking the transition phase between high speed survey and low speed manoeuvring operation. The results demonstrate the advantageous nature of undertaking a smooth interchange between control approaches considering both the vehicle performance and the energy demands.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, 1960. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-77). / by Alfred I. Raff. / M.S.

Thesis (Nav.E)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering; and, (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 1968. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-64). / by James Peter Regan. / M.S. / Nav.E

Thesis (B.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, 1968, and Thesis (B.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, 1968. / Bibliography: leaf 46. / B.S.