Design and implementation of a visual monitoring system to ensure safety in the water surrounding a container vessel

Container vessels navigate among the world＇s ports, frequently passing through narrow and congested waters. Due to the many layers of containers on a container vessel＇s decks, it is difficult for the crew to be aware of all fishing vessels and other obstacles in a container vessel＇s radar observation blind zone. This greatly increases the risk of collisions and other accidents. Given such great challenges to safe navigation and safety management with container vessels, their security risks are severe. An effective visual monitoring system can improve the safety of the water area surrounding container vessel by eliminating a vessel＇s observation blind zone, providing an effective safety measure for vessels navigating fishing zones and other troublesome areas. The system has other functions, such as accident recording, ship security, and monitoring of loading and unloading operations, thus ensuring the ship operates safely. Six months＇ trial operation showed that the system facilitates safe navigation of container vessels.

Research on Anti-collision Capability and Safety Supervision Measures of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge

With the vigorous development of inland river shipping economy,the trend of large ships passing Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge is obvious.The standard formula of ship collision force is selected by comparing the empirical calculation formulas.Four representative ship types are selected for calculation and analyzing of collision force.It is concluded that the anti-collision ability of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge does not meet the requirement of large ship collision force when the speed is more than 8-knots.From the perspective of active collision avoidance,this paper puts forward the navigation safety supervision countermeasures.A conceptual model of guided pulley anti-collision device is designed from the perspective of passive anti-collision.The research results provide references for safety supervision and anti-collision measures for the bridge.

Ported wall extension hydraulics

Ported wall extensions are important hydraulic structures used to reduce crosscurrents in upper approaches to locks.The effect of such extensions located upstream of a solid guard wall on flow characteristics depends on many factors,including geometric and hydraulic parameters.In this study,the hydraulic performance of ported wall extensions was experimentally investigated in terms of the permeability coefficient,expanding angle,extension length,and flow depth.The results demonstrate that the dimensionless maximum transverse velocity is closely related to the permeability coefficient,expanding angle,and flow depth.By contrast,the dimensionless eddy length mainly depends on the permeability coefficient,expanding angle,and extension length.Furthermore,the optimum permeability coefficient increases with the expanding angle or flow depth,and it is approximately constant for different extension lengths.These results have the potential to provide direct guidance for the design of effective ported wall extensions in upper approaches to locks.

A novel approach for navigational safety evaluation of inland waterway ships under uncertain environment

This paper proposes a safety evaluation model of inland waterway ship navigation based on the fuzzy theory and evidential reasoning(ER)approach.The proposed model is a three-level hierarchical system consisting of 18 indicators that are identified and determined through literature review and expert surveys.By using fuzzy theory,the factors of the index level are converted into belief distributions,and the information of indicators within each level is merged by using the ER approach so that the evaluation of the ship’s navigation safety can be realized.This model can deal with multi-source information and both qualitative and quantitative indicators in an integrated framework.Some case studies on the safety status of ships navigating in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River during dry season are conducted to validate the feasibility and practicability of the proposed model.The results show that the risk levels obtained from the proposed model are consistent with the real-life situation to a large extent.The novel model proposed in this study provides a useful reference for maritime safety management and will help managers and decision-makers in the risk prevention and early warning of inland waterway transportation accidents.