ABSTRACT
In such a case, the designer’s decision-making activities consist in carrying out a risk analysis and determining its acceptability. The risk analysis opens great possibilities for the improvement of the operator safety design solutions. Qualitative methods of the risk analysis are used generally. Those methods are easier to apply and require considerably less detailed information than the quantitative methods (Szopa 1996). Methods based on the relationship between risk together with unreliability and possible hazards are applied very often. Some of them have been even worked out in the form of international standards and recommended by respective regulations. One example of such regulations is guidelines allowing to evaluate conditions for protection of the ship and port objects against hazards connected with terrorist attacks. They were developed by the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG 2003) and they are contained in recommendations of the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS 2003). Based on such guidelines, one can receive the suitable information allowing to plan the corrective and preventive actions in relation to incompatibilities identified in the protection process. The mentioned guidelines were an inspiration for making attempts to develop a procedure allowing to evaluate the level of the operator’s safety. This procedure based on the preliminary design of ship power plants should set up the foundations for:
– selection of the most effective ways for improvement of the operator’s safety,
– evaluation of the degree of improvement of the operator’s safety.
