Interest in the safety of ship is increasing with the coming of the cruising boom
"maritimeEXODUS" secures the safety through design, construction, and test

Business of the China Classification Society is to test ship designs before building ships in order to check whether its safety is secured based on the Chinese standards. Maritime companies cannot purchase insurance without the certification. The company is receiving more and more requests about these important reviews from shipbuilders and ship operators year by year. For example, in 2016, the year of the 60's anniversary of the company, it conducted reviews against the total of more than 100 million tons of ships a year.

In China, cruise by passenger ships is becoming a fad along with the economic growth. "How to ensure the safety of ships, especially of passenger ships, is attracting interests. Ninety percent of new ships are built in Asia (Japan, Korea, and China), and the ratio of passenger ship is increasing. Cruise ship business is developing at so astonishing speed that a large cruise ship is planned to be built", says Mr. Zhou Jie Min, the senior engineer of the China Classification Society.

The China Classification Society recently started to use "maritimeEXODUS", the evacuation simulation software for ship, in order to build safer cruise ships and passenger ships.

"The self-design of large cruise ship has just begun in China. We who are responsible for the review of ships introduced the maritimeEXODUS for the pre analysis to build safe ships according to the law standards through design, building, and test by using this software. I think that we are able to improve the customer satisfaction thanks to it", Mr. Zhou Jie Min explains.

The safety of emergency evacuation at fire etc. is checked by reviewing the ship diagram according to the existing laws and rules, for example movement speed of passengers on each floor, width of floors and stairs, and designs of aisles. The testers allocate number of people to each exit to the deck in order to first confirm if evacuees can gather near the exits within 30 minutes. Then they see if the evacuees can take to the boats in another 30 minutes.

This seems slow compared with the "90 seconds rule" applied for airplanes that all passengers need evacuate the plane within 90 seconds. A senior engineer Chen Guo Qing explains as follows. "Locations of people on the ship differ between day and night, and evacuation situations also differ according to the types of emergency such as fire, collision, or immersion. We prepare multiple refuge routes in case of a panic situation. Especially we are studying the way of an orderly evacuation from the large cruiser with many passengers within the time limit. We are conducting tests, considering how people escape and how ships should be designed to evacuate more people. I think that more intuitive analyses can be realized by creating models via software and simulating predicted situations, than checking drawings".

Also, professor Edwin Galea, the developer of the maritimeEXODUS, Fire Safety Engineering Group, University of Greenwich, is playing an active role in the IMO (International Maritime Organization). Recently, "IMOC1533", the numerical analysis standard for fire simulation, was revised, and the SMARTFIRE immediately started its support.

Mr. Zhou comments, "Though safety standards of ships differs according to countries, results tested by this British software are easy to understand with their international standard quality." Also in this respect, the China Classification Society seems to find significance of the usage of the maritimeEXODUS.

As for the maritimeEXODUS and SMARTFIRE, the fact that it is developed by Prof. Galea who is the world's expert on the safety of ships has a great meaning. It gives users a sense of ease.