Comparison of bulk carriers safety at alternate and homogeneous loading

Abstract

Bulk carriers have been designed with a small margin of safety. The extensive corrosion and very difficult operation conditions caused that some of old bulk carriers have insufficient strength to withstand the heaviest storms. The paper presents the influence of changing the loading condition from alternate loading (cargo in every second hold) into uniform (cargo in each hold) distribution of heavy cargo on the improvement of safety of old bulk carriers. The strength of the structures, ship stability and transverse accelerations are analysed depending on the loading conditions. The flooding of one hold is also taken into account in the analyses.