Development of Best Practices for Ship Recycling Processes

Content Provider	CUSAT-Thesis
Advisor	Dr.Nandakumar, C G
Researcher	Sivaprasad, K
Abstract	Ship recycling has been considered as the best means to dispose off an obsolete ship.The current state of art of technology combined with the demands of sustainabledevelopments from the global maritime industrial sector has modified the status oferstwhile ‘ship breaking’ involving ship scrap business to a modern industryundertaking dismantling of ships and recycling/reusing the dismantled products in asupply chain of pre owned product market by following the principles of recycling.Industries will have to formulate a set of best practices and blend them with theengineering activities for producing better quality products, improving theproductivity and for achieving improved performances related to sustainabledevelopment. Improved performance by industries in a sustainable developmentperspective is accomplished only by implementing the 4E principles, ie.,. ecofriendliness,engineering efficiency, energy conservation and ergonomics in theircore operations. The present study has done a comprehensive investigation intovarious ship recycling operations for formulating a set of best practices.Being the ultimate life cycle stage of a ship, ship recycling activities incorporatecertain commercial procedures well in advance to facilitate the objectives ofdismantling and recycling/reusing of various parts of the vessel. Thoroughknowledge regarding these background procedures in ship recycling is essential forexamining and understanding the industrial business operations associated with it. Asa first step, the practices followed in merchant shipping operations regarding thedecision on decommissioning have been and made available in the thesis. Briefdescription about the positioning methods and important preparations for the mostfeasible ship recycling method ie.,. beach method have been provided as a part of theoutline of the background information. Available sources of guidelines, codes andrules & regulations for ship recycling have been compiled and included in thediscussion.Very brief summary of practices in major ship recycling destinations has beenprepared and listed for providing an overview of the global ship recycling activities.The present status of ship recycling by treating it as a full fledged engineeringindustry has been brought out to establish the need for looking into the developmentof the best practices. Major engineering attributes of ship as a unique engineering product and the significant influencing factors on her life cycle stage operations havebeen studied and added to the information base on ship recycling. Role of shiprecycling industry as an important player in global sustainable development effortshas been reviewed by analysing the benefits of ship recycling. A brief synopsis on thestate of art of ship recycling in major international ship recycling centres has alsobeen incorporated in the backdrop knowledgebase generation on ship recyclingprocesses.Publications available in this field have been reviewed and classified into five subjectcategories viz., Infrastructure for recycling yards and methods of dismantling, Rulesregarding ship recycling activities, Environmental and safety aspects of shiprecycling, Role of naval architects and ship classification societies, Application ofinformation technology and Demand forecasting. The inference from the literaturesurvey have been summarised and recorded. Noticeable observations in the inferenceinclude need of creation of a comprehensive knowledgebase on ship recycling and itseffective implementation in the industry and the insignificant involvement of navalarchitects and shipbuilding engineers in ship recycling industry. These two importantinferences and the message conveyed by them have been addressed with dueimportance in the subsequent part of the present study.As a part of the study the importance of demand forecasting in ship recycling hasbeen introduced and presented. A sample input for ship recycling data forimplementation of computer based methods of demand forecasting has been presentedin this section of the thesis.The interdisciplinary nature of engineering processes involved in ship recycling hasbeen identified as one of the important features of this industry. The present study hasidentified more than a dozen major stake holders in ship recycling having their owninterests and roles. It has also been observed that most of the ship recycling activitiesis carried out in South East Asian countries where the beach based ship recycling isdone in yards without proper infrastructure support. A model of beach based shiprecycling has been developed and the roles, responsibilities and the mutualinteractions of the elements of the system have been documented as a part of the studySubsequently the need of a generation of a wide knowledgebase on ship recyclingactivities as pointed out by the literature survey has been addressed. The information base and source of expertise required to build a broad knowledgebase on shiprecycling operations have been identified and tabulated. Eleven important shiprecycling processes have been identified and a brief sketch of steps involved in theseprocesses have been examined and addressed in detail. Based on these findings, adetailed sequential disassembly process plan of ship recycling has been prepared andcharted. After having established the need of best practices in ship recycling initially,the present study here identifies development of a user friendly expert system for shiprecycling process as one of the constituents of the proposed best practises. A userfriendly expert system has been developed for beach based ship recycling processesand is named as Ship Recycling Recommender (SRR). Two important functions ofSRR, first one for the ‘Administrators’, the stake holders at the helm of the shiprecycling affairs and second one for the ‘Users’, the stake holders who execute theactual dismantling have been presented by highlighting the steps involved in theexecution of the software. The important output generated, ie.,. recommendedpractices for ship dismantling processes and safe handling information on materialspresent onboard have been presented with the help of ship recycling reports generatedby the expert system. A brief account of necessity of having a ship recycling workcontent estimation as part of the best practices has been presented in the study. This issupported by a detailed work estimation schedule for the same as one of theappendices.As mentioned earlier, a definite lack of involvement of naval architect has beenobserved in development of methodologies for improving the status of ship recyclingindustry. Present study has put forward a holistic approach to review the status of shiprecycling not simply as end of life activity of all ‘time expired’ vessels, but as a focalpoint of integrating all life cycle activities. A new engineering design philosophytargeting sustainable development of marine industrial domain, named design for shiprecycling has been identified, formulated and presented. A new model of ship lifecycle has been proposed by adding few stages to the traditional life cycle afteranalysing their critical role in accomplishing clean and safe end of life and partialdismantling of ships. Two applications of design for ship recycling viz, recyclabilityof ships and her products and allotment of Green Safety Index for ships have beenpresented as a part of implementation of the philosophy in actual practice.
File Format	PDF
Language	English
Publisher Institution	Cochin University of Science & Technology
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Ship Recycling Process Ship Recycling Demand Forecasting
Content Type	Text
Educational Degree	Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Resource Type	Thesis