On a risk-based method for safety assessment of a ship in critical cinditions at the preliminary design stage

The paper presents some current results of the research on development of a method forsafety assessment of ships in critical conditions at the preliminary design stage. The me-thod is expected to make it possible to perform the multi-objective and multi-parametric investigations to achieve the required and optimum levels of safety by using the risk-basedand formal approaches to ship safety. During the design analysis influence of parameters associated with the hull form, arrangement of internal spaces, loading conditions, positionand extent of damage, cargo shift and weather impacts on safety of ships in critical conditions will be taken into account. Current capabilities of the method are illustrated by several calculationexamples of influence of different arrangements of internal spaces of a cargo ship on values of the IMOformal subdivision indices such as the "Attained Subdivision Index A" and "Local Subdivision Indices DAj".The method is still under development and its final structure will be presented in the near future.