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Reliable and efficient injury assessment for free-fall lifeboat occupants during water entry: correlation study between lifeboat acceleration indicators and simulated human injury responses

Abstract

The evacuation of personnel from an offshore installation in severe weather conditions is generally ensured by free-fall lifeboats. During the water entry phase of the launch, the lifeboat may be subject to large acceleration loads that may cause harmful acceleration-induced loads on the occupants.

The present/common methodology for assessing the occupant safety of free-fall lifeboats uses one single characteristic launch to perform injury risk analysis for a given free-fall lifeboat launch condition that includes e.g. weather conditions, lifeboat and host installation loading conditions.

This paper describes an alternative methodology to fully assess the risk of injury for lifeboat occupants during water entry by introducing a correlation model between acceleration load indicators and injury responses. The results are presented in terms of seating matrices showing critical seat rows, in which the probability of being injured exceeds a pre-defined threshold.

Category

Academic chapter

Language

English

Author(s)

Affiliation

  • SINTEF Ocean / Skip og havkonstruksjoner
  • Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research
  • Equinor

Year

2014

Publisher

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

Book

33rd International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering Volume 4B: Structures, Safety and Reliability

ISBN

9780791845431

View this publication at Norwegian Research Information Repository