Determination of the safety exclusion zone for battery-powered ship with consideration of fire accident
Volume
77
Issue number
1
Article number
77106
Received
28 May 2025
Received in revised form
19 August 2025
Accepted
01 September 2025
Available online
12 September 2025
Authors
Wenfen Zhang1,2,3, Yunling Zhang1, Bing Wu2,*, Yang Yu2, Yupeng Yuan2
1 School of Management, Wuhan Textile University, Wuhan 430073, China
2 State Key Laboratory of Maritime Technology and Safety, National Engineering Research Center for water Transport safety, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430063, China
3 Enterprise Decision Support Research Center, The Hubei Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences, Wuhan 430073, China
Corresponding author email
Abstract
Battery-powered ships have been developed quickly owing to the international dual carbon strategy and net-zero initiatives. However, the safety of battery-powered ships has attracted much attention because of the high frequency of fire accidents, and maintaining a safety distance between a battery-powered ship and nearby vessels is a proven method to mitigate risks. The large battery capacity poses significant challenges due to intense thermal radiation during fires. Thus, this paper proposes a novel method for determining the safety exclusion zone to mitigate the consequences of collision accidents while considering the thermal runaway of the battery. On basis of a thermal radiation model, the safety distance for avoiding radiation damage is determined by setting the acceptable thermal radiation flux as the threshold level. Afterward, a ship domain model and following theory are used to calculate the longitudinal and lateral safety distances of a battery-powered ship. Finally, a computational fluid dynamics simulation-based case study is carried out to demonstrate the application of the proposed method. This study provides critical insights for policymakers and researchers in advancing maritime safety protocols.
Keywords
Safety exclusion zone, Battery-powered ship, Fire accident, Thermal radiation