Akademik Məlumat İdarəetmə Sistemi
Journal of Marine Engineering and Technology, 2025 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) ship-to-ship (STS) transfers have emerged as a critical process in the global LNG supply chain, facilitating flexible and efficient cargo movements despite significant operational risks. This paper attempts to perform a comprehensive risk analysis for the LNG STS operational process. To accomplish this, integrated risk-based modelling; Dempster-Shafer evidence theory and Failure mode effects and criticality analysis are used for quantification. Whilst the Dempster-Shafer evidence theory provides a mathematical framework to properly tackle with epistemic uncertainty in the assessment of risk parameters and to prioritise failure modes, the Failure mode effects and criticality analysis is addressing the assessment of potential operational failures and causes. In the study, the hybrid model integrates failure mode effects and criticality analysis to identify failure modes with Dempster-Shafer to quantify epistemic uncertainty in expert assessments of Occurrence (O), Severity (S), and Detection (D) parameters. Interval-valued expert judgments were combined using Dempster-Shafer rules, generating belief and plausibility distributions for Risk Priority Numbers (RPNs) to prioritise 19 identified failure modes. Results identified ‘mooring/unmooring related problems (RPN = 252)’ as the most critical failure mode, followed by ‘excessive ship speed (RPN = 180)’ and ‘high rate of cargo transfer (RPN = 175)’. Through this comprehensive research, the findings aim to offer insights for organisational managers, maritime safety researchers and crew members involved in LNG STS operations, fostering a deeper understanding of the strategies essential for ensuring safe and efficient LNG STS cargo operations.