A probabilistic method for estimating the percentage of corrosion depth on the inner bottom plates of aging bulk carriers

Abstract

This paper presents an approach for the model estimating the probabilistic percent corrosion depth for inner bottom plates of fuel oil tanks located in the double bottom of aging bulk carriers. Assuming that corrosion begins after four years of exploitation, a statistical approach to investigations on the ratio of the corrosion rate and the average initial inner bottom plate's thickness of considered bulk carriers is given. We consider this ratio to be a random variable since it is included in the usual linear corrosion model. By applying adequate statistical tests to the available empirical dataset, three best fitted three-parameter distributions for estimating the cumulative density function and the probability density function of the random variable were obtained. These three distributions were further used to estimate the studied percentage of corrosion depth. Lastly, we present the corresponding numerical and graphical results concerning the obtained statistical and empirical results and give concluding remarks.