For the first time a large scale, smoke filled test facility capable of dynamic motion superimposed over an angle of heel is being used with volunteer 'passengers' for live trials. This follows major enhancements to the Ship Evacuation Behaviour Assessment (SHEBA) facility, which provides a uniquely realistic insight into the evacuation process. This represents a pivotal stage for the EU FIRE-EXIT project, which is aimed at improving ship safety.

Full scale abandonment trials are also being conducted in Canada. Volunteers are timed and behaviour videotaped as they escape from muster stations via inflatable slides and vertical chutes as they cross a collection platform and enter life rafts and lifeboats. Model tests have been performed to measure lifeboat launching performance in high sea states.

Data collected from these trials is being incorporated within the maritimeEXODUS ship evacuation software and the fire simulation software SMARTFIRE, both of which are developed by the Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG) at the University of Greenwich UK, which is also part of the research consortium.

Work to date has also highlighted the fact that the software will be useful not only in incorporating higher levels of safety at the earlier stages of design but also in enabling owners to reassess plans for passenger movement. With potential for use in planning routine movements such as boarding or movement at meal times on large passenger ships, this could lead to smoother on board operations in general.

The three year FIRE-EXIT project is scheduled to finish in August 2005 and demonstrations are likely to be available by the end of the year. FIRE-EXIT will be of particular assistance in meeting the more rigorous legislative measures seeking to increase maritime safety which have been recently established by the EU. For example, Council Directive 98/18/EC sets out requirements for new class B, C and D ro-ro passenger ships to have escape routes evaluated by an evacuation analysis early in the design process.

The FIRE-EXIT consortium also includes AVEVA AB, BMT Fleet Technology Ltd, Det Norsk Veritas, the METTLE Groupe, the Marine Institute at the Memorial University Newfoundland, and the Institute for Ocean Technology at the National Research Council of Canada.

MJ Information No: 19826