SAFETY ASSESSMENT OF NUCLEAR POWERED MERCHANT SHIPS

Starts with reviewing safety aspects of nuclear ship propulsion and discusses existing safety regulations and safety assessment methods. It concludes that the lack of adequate quantitative safety regulations has the following drawbacks: (1) Lengthy design and licensing period because of the several iterations between designer and regulatory agency; (2) The shipowner has little advance assurance that a nuclear ship built and licensed in one country will be accepted into the territorial waters of other countries; (3) The present use of qualitative safety assessment methods rather than quantitative may result in either a too-low or a too-high accident risk relative to the optimum for society. These drawbacks can be avoided by the application of quantitative safety assessment methods, and the last chapter of the thesis outlines such a method and a compatible concept for international safety regulations.

• Corporate Authors:

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Department of Ocean Engineering, 77 Massachusetts Avenue
  Cambridge, MA  United States  02139
• Authors:
  • Gloersen, T C
• Publication Date: 1975-5-9

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Nuclear power; Nuclear powered ships; Nuclear reactors; Regulations; Safety; Ship operations
• Old TRIS Terms: Nuclear reactor safety
• Subject Areas: Law; Marine Transportation; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00099975
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Report/Paper Numbers: MS Thesis
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 18 1975 12:00AM