A Guide To Ballast Tanks On Ships
A Guide To Ballast Tanks On Ships
A Guide To Ballast Tanks On Ships
During the designing and construction stages of a ship, the ballast tanks are introduced at
various locations for maintaining the stability of the ship during the sea voyage.
The concept of ballast is not new and has been followed since ancient times. In the
earlier times, the sea-going vessels used solid ballast such as sandbags, rocks, iron
blocks, etc. which were loaded/unloaded once the cargo loading or discharge operation
was finished. This method helped to a certain extent to maintain the stability of the ship
and its seaworthiness.
However, today’s vessels carry liquid ballast, which includes fresh water, salt water or
brackish water in various ballast tanks. As ships get bigger in size and the cargo carried
by the vessels varies one port to another (due to global economics, ship condition, local
voyage requirements etc.), water ballast tanks are used to compensate for maintaining
the trim and stability of the vessel for a safe sea passage.
Related Read: Everything You Wanted to Know About Ballast Water Exchange and
Management Plan
– Light Ballast: When the ship is heavily loaded, and it does not require an additional
ballast, the water ballast tanks are kept empty. This condition is known as a light ballast.
– Heavy Ballast: During the seagoing state, if the ship is not fully loaded, ship ballast
tanks are filled to its capacity. This condition is known as a heavy ballast.
– Port Ballast: Many ports around the world have a restriction for usage of ballast
water. Dedicated port ballast tanks are provided to correct the trim and list of the ship
during loading or discharging operation, and this is called port ballast.
Types of Ship Ballast Tanks as Per The Location
The water ballast tanks are provided at different locations depending upon the type of
the ship. Following are some of the most common locations for construction of ballast
tanks on ships:
Topside Tanks
As the name suggests, these are the tanks are located on the topside corner of the
ship. The topside tanks are triangular in shape fitted with wings on both sides of the
cargo holds. They are more common in bulk carrier ships and are constructed using
transverse frames arranged in the following ways:
1. A deck transverse under the main deck which supports the deck plating
2. Bottom transverse which forms the part of the supporting frame for the bottom area
of the topside tank
3. Side transverse forms the part of the structure for supporting the side shell plating
of the tank, which is kept in-line with the side shell frames within the cargo holds (in
single skin bulk carriers)
These tanks, are directly connected to ship’s main ballast pipelines and during the
cargo loading/ discharging operation, the volume of the ship ballast water in the topside
tank is kept in equilibrium with the cargo weight.
The design of the topside tanks helps in avoiding a shift of the cargo in inaccessible
spaces for the grab as these tank designs helps in carrying the cargo such as grain etc.
without the need of the trim.
Similar in construction to the topside ballast tanks, these water ballast tanks are located
on the bottom wing sides of each cargo hold of the ships, and they are kept in
continuation to the double bottom tanks which run through the centre of the vessel. The
hopper tanks provide the following advantages:
The double bottom of the ship is a safety feature to avoid ingress of water in case of
grounding or collision. These void spaces are used to store ship ballast water to
stabilize the ship.
The double bottom tanks are located between the forward part (till collision bulkhead) to
the aft peak bulkhead, dividing the engine room.
In some ships, such as container and bulk ship, the double bottom space is divided
transversely into three sections (instead of two). This is done to provide a cofferdam in
the centre known as the`duct keel’ which are used to carry ballast and bunker tank
valves, and pipings for ships ballast tank and bunkering system.
The construction of the DB tanks is directly related to the length of the ship as the
vessel with more than 120 m will have additional longitudinal framing in comparison with
transverse framing for vessels of less than 120 m lengths.
Unlike upper topside tanks, these water ballast tanks are adjacent to the fuel oil tanks in
the double bottom. Hence, they are usually not connected to the ballast system to avoid
any chance of contamination.
The fore and aft peak ballast tanks are provided to perform precise trimming operation
of the ship. To achieve the required trim these tanks are hardly filled partially to avoid
the free surface effect of the liquid
The construction of the fore and aft peak tanks is different from the other ship’s ballast
tank as their shape is pretty irregular due to the location and their shape highly depends
on the bow and the stern design of the vessel.
The design of these ship ballast tanks is narrow at the bottom end, and as the tank
moves upward, the width of the tank increases significantly. The tank breadth
corresponds to the breadth of ships’ hulls.
The valve used to control the flow of water in the ballast tank can either be manually
controlled butterfly valve or hydraulically operated remote valve. For fore and Aft peak
tanks, only remote control (hydraulic) valves are used due to their location.
Types of Ballast Tanks As Per Usage On Oil Tankers
The oil tanker ships have a different set of regulations for the ballast tanks. The two
main types as per the usage are:
As per MARPOL Annex 1, Regulation 18 – Every crude oil tanker of 20,000 tonnes
deadweight and above and every product carrier of 30,000 tonnes deadweight and
above delivered after 1 June 1982, as defined in regulation 1.28.4, shall be provided
with segregated ballast tanks.
The segregated ballast tanks (SBT) are dedicated tanks constructed for the sole
purpose of carrying ballast water on oil tanker ships. They are completely separated
from the cargo, and fuel tanks and only ballast pumps are used in the SBT.
The Segregated ballast tanks avoid any chances of mixing oil and water which usually
happens when cargo holds are used to carry ballast water.
Clean Ballast Tanks (CBT)
The oil tankers may travel without carrying cargo in its holds which may lead to stability
issues. Especially in bad weather. Hence, the cargo holds which carried oil in the last
voyage are cleaned and then filled with clean ballast water.
During the discharge of ballast water, an oil content monitor control is used and the only
effluent which is <15ppm is discharged overboard, and rest is transferred to the slop
tanks.
Multiple ballast pumps are provided in the engine room which takes the suction from the
main seawater line (from sea chest) and during the deballasting operation, they
discharge the water from ballast overboard line and valve. The CCR is provided with the
ballast tank level monitoring system, and the pump cutoff is controlled once the water
level reaches the sensor level to activate the trip.
Atmosphere monitoring:
In oil tanker ships, the ballast tank is provided with gas measuring sensors at various
levels- usually, upper and bottom levels.
During the loaded condition of the ship, the ballast tank will be kept empty. In such
situation, the three-way valve in the sampling line will be set towards the lower sampling
point.
When the ship is the ballast/partial ballast condition, it will be turned to activate the top
sampling point. This is done to avoid the entrance of water into the analysing unit
through the sampling points.
Volume Monitoring:
The volume monitoring of the ballast tank is done to achieve the ballast/ deballast rate
of the pumping system. This is done by the loadicator software installed on the ship,
and the ship’s officer will manipulate the results displayed by the loadicator to operate
the fill/ discharge valve of the ballast tank.
The change in the volume of the ballast tank is used to calculate the ballast pump rate,
which in turn, determines the time needed to finish the ballasting or deballasting
operation. This helps the chief officer to complete the stability operation in time to
maintain the ship’s Estimated Time of Departure (ETD).
Corrosion is a major problem on ships. Following methods are used for protection
against corrosion:
Tank Coating:
Coating in the tank surface is the most common protection system used on the ship.
The advantage of the coating is that it protects the entire tank at a time and if the right
quality of coating is applied, the ballast tank can work without any problem for a long
period. It is the layer of the coating which protects the seawater to come in contact with
the steel of the tank.
The coating dry film thickness can be as thin as 300 microns. The most common type of
coating used is; heavy-duty dual-component epoxy coating.
Anode:
Use of sacrificial anodes is very popular inside the tanks to control the corrosion. Zinc,
aluminium and their alloys with other metals such as tin are a popular choice of anodes
used onboard.
Magnesium anodes are not to be used in the ship ballast water tanks as they tend to
generate hydrogen, while in operation, which can have deleterious effects on some
ballast tank coatings.
Aluminium anodes are not used in oil tankers as they are prone to spark hazard if
dropped from significant heights.
Controlled Atmosphere:
If the atmosphere of the ballast tank can be controlled to reduce the oxygen content, the
corrosion rate decreases drastically. This system is known as oxygen stripping which is
done by introducing inert gas to maintain the oxygen level in the tank below 4%.
This system is used with the tank with a protective coating and even with anodes fitted
tanks (to extend the life of sacrificial anodes). It reduces the corrosion to as much as
84%.
The ships’ officer must know the following conditions which need to be regularly
inspected inside the ballast tank of the ship:
The extent of corrosion inside tank surface should be noted, and localised corrosion
should be marked appropriately. If the corrosion wastes of the tank surface exceed 75%
of the allowable margin, repair such as renewal of hull structural to be carried out.
Coating Condition:
Coating plays an important role in ship ballast water tank surface protection hence
proper inspection of coating to be performed. Visible failure of the coating to be noted
along with rusting of tank surface especially on the weld lines and edges of the tanks.
The history of the ships (previous inspection records) plays a critical role in the current
inspection method followed and even records of sister vessel can be used to decide for
repair, if needed, followed by a survey and pressure testing of the ballast tank post
repairs.