Optimized Ballast Water Exchange Management for Bulk Carriers

벌크 화물선용 자동 밸러스트수 교환계획 시스템 개발

Many port states, such as New Zealand, U.S.A., Australia, and Canada, have strict regulations to prevent arriving ships from discharging polluted ballast water that contains harmful aquatic organisms and pathogens. They are notified that transfer of polluted ballast water can cause serious injury to public health and damage to property and environment. For this reason, ballast exchange in deep sea is perceived as the most effective method of emptying ballast water. The ballast management plan contains the effective exchange method, ballast system, and safety considerations. In this study, we pursued both nautical engineering analysis and optimization of the algorithm, in order to generate the sequence of stability and rapidity. A heuristic algorithm was chosen on the basis of optimality and applicability to a sequential exchange problem. We have built an optimized algorithm for the automatic exchange of ballast water, by redefining core elements of the A$\ast$ algorithm, such as node, operator, and evaluation function. The final version of the optimized algorithm has been applied to existing bulk carrier, and the performance of the algorithm has been successfully verified.