The Impact of New Marpol Regulations on Bulk Carrier Design: A Case Study

This paper aims at investigating upon the influence on bulk carrier design of the new regulations concerning prevention of oil spills from bunker tanks. At first a brief review of the incoming amendments to the MARPOL 73/78 regulations will be performed. Within such context reference will be made to both the deterministic and the probabilistic approaches. A case study will be therefore carried out taking as reference a recently built Panamax size bulk carrier ship: the most appropriate solutions in terms of bunker tank arrangement will be sought to ensure the required level of environmental safety to be guaranteed. The relative effectiveness of the proposed design solutions will be explored using the probabilistic oil outflow analysis technique as implemented in the latest amendments of the incoming MARPOL 73/78 regulations. Starting from the analysis of the considered rules and the results of the proposed case study, some suggestions will be given concerning the development of guidelines for bunker tank arrangement in bulk carrier ships.