Samenvatting

The Pride of Rotterdam has been sailing for over 20 years and vibration has always been something to focus on. Lately the complaints have been increasing from the passenger’s concerning vibration. It was unclear whether it was the level of vibration that had increased or the passengers desired level of comfort. To aim of the research was to uncover if there is a correlation between the actual vibration and the sensation of vibration.

To achieve the research goal, the research consisted of a survey for gathering crewmember perception data, desk research for the collection of ships data and literature study for the legislation. This answers the three sub-question and the main question.

The sub-questions were:
• What variables or combination of variables are the reason for the increase in vibration?
• What are the options to decrease the crewmember’s perception of vibration?
• What is the Pearson correlation between crewmembers’ degree of discomfort and the level of vibration?

How can the level of disturbance be decreased among the passengers and crewmembers concerning perceived vibration?

The data collection was split into multiple sections. For the vibration and other internal factors, a data collection sheet was designed which was filled in by the engineer of the watch. The external factors were copied from the bridge integrated data log. The perception of vibration was recorded by surveying crewmembers and finally a contractor was hired to record the frequency of the vibration of the vessel.

The data of all these factors were organised in an excel file in separate sheets to create an organised data base of the eight weeks of data recording. To analyse this data, a large overarching sheet was made where all relevant data was numerically converted and analysed using Pearson correlation coefficient analysis. Using this method, a table was produced ranking all variables by correlation of vibration and correlation of perceived vibration.

The study showed that factors like telegraph position and draught have a relative strong correlation to actual vibrations and the perception of vibration has a relative strong correlation to wind strength. Measurements show that the ships frequency consists mostly of seven and eight hertz which are frequencies known to irritate people.

Further study is required to assess with certainty what causes the passengers to experience vibrations to such a degree and what can be done to mitigate this problem.