A comprehensive risk assessment of enclosed space operations on ships

This study presents a comprehensive risk assessment to identify, quantify, and prioritise enclosed space operations' most critical failure modes. Enclosed space operations on board ships have severe consequences due to the human-related, procedural, equipment-related, operational, emergency response, environmental, and structural hazards involved. It integrates failure modes, effects, and criticality analysis, evidential reasoning, and rule-based Bayesian network techniques to manage uncertainty and model causal relationships. A total of twenty-three failure modes under five main risk components related to enclosed space operations are assessed in detail and the results were analysed both quantitatively and causally. The findings of the analysis revealed that the most critical risk components are procedural and human failures. Furthermore, limited procedural traceability and auditability emerged as the most critical failure mode. In line with the results, the study identifies the risks and the systematic problems behind these risks and provides solution-oriented short- and long-term strategies.