Investigation of Fuel Oil/Lube Oil Spray Fires On Board Vessels. Volume 3

摘要

The U.S. Coast Guard sponsored this project to assess control measures (technological advancements as well as safety management systems) for preventing or mitigating the impacts of fuel oil or lube oil spray fires on board vessels particularly in the engine room. For this purpose, we identified a number of proposed control measures to prevent/mitigate the impacts of spray fires, and then we evaluated the reduction in task that can be expected from the implementation of each measure. As part of our evaluation, we identified many sources of relevant incident investigation reports. These sources provided a total of 143 fires caused by releases of fuel oil/lube oil; of these 9 are known to have resulted in fatalities, and another 8 are known to have resulted in personnel injury. Our research findings substantiated several (and refuted a few) previous findings beliefs regarding spray fires. In addition, our investigation resulted in 18 feasible, practical control measures (recommendations) to reduce risks associated with fuel oil/lube oil spray fires in engine rooms. The first 12 recommendations address specific changes to: (1) existing fuel oil/lube oil equipment and systems and (2) management issues. The next three recommendations address more significant changes to fuel oil/lube oil equipment, and they are presented for new (or significantly modified) ships. We also identified two areas that require additional research and development efforts, and we developed two recommendations to address these areas. Finally, we determined that much of the risk associated with fuel oil/lube oil spray fires stems from deficiencies in (or lack of) safety management systems. That is, the root cause of these incidents is generally the absence of, neglect of, or deficiencies in management systems. This report consists of three volumes.