Abstract:

In order to mitigate the catastrophic consequences resulting from various accidents, F-N curve method was employed to conduct research on societal risk acceptance criteria for typical ships in the Yangtze River. Combined with the actual data of the bulk carriers on Yangtze River, the sensitivity analysis of the key parameters that determine the region boundary of ALARP was carried out, including EV, the risk aversion factor and the upper limit of the fatalities in one accident. For the bulk carriers, the general societal risk acceptance criterion was established. Considering the society's risk aversion to a large number of deaths, an improved acceptance criterion was proposed. Furthermore, the historical accident data of bulk carriers in the Yangtze River from 2010 to 2019 were collected. Through data analysis and frequency calculation, the societal risk of the bulk carriers caused by collision, grounding, contact, stranding, sinking, fire/explosion and wind disaster were determined, and risk assessment was conducted using the acceptance criteria established in this paper. It is shown that the risk aversion factor is the most crucial parameter to determine whether the criterion is strict enough. The number of fatalities corresponding to the horizontal intercept of the upper boundary line of ALARP region for the improved criterion is 9.55% of that of the general criterion, while considering the horizontal intercept of the lower boundary line of ALARP region, the percentage is 44.44%, which means that the improved criterion is more stringent and exhibits stronger aversion to a larger number of deaths.

Key words: societal risk, acceptance criteria, frequency-number of fatalities (F-N), as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP), potential loss of life (PLL)