Welcome Address by Prof. Marcelo A Santos Neves
On behalf of the National Organizing Committee I would like to express my hearty welcome to all the participants to this 9 th International Conference on Stability of Ships and Ocean Vehicles .
It is of significant importance to evaluate stability of ships at the design stage, and to reflect the results of studies on stability in the criteria or standards for making judgments on stability both in view of design and of the operation of ships. For this purpose, international gatherings of people, like this STAB 2006 International Conference, promoting the exchange of information on stability of ships and ocean vehicles, should be very useful.
The STAB 2006 is a follow up of the International Conference on Stability of Ships and Ocean Vehicles, organized by Professor Kuo and held in 1975 at the University of Strathclyde . The aim of this Conference is exactly the same as that of the first Conference that is: a) to provide an opportunity for those involved in stability activities, including design, operation, research or regulatory purposes, to discuss the available research findings at an international level; and b) to see how these results can be applied in actual usage.
Ninety five valuable papers will be presented at this Conference, coming from more than 22 countries. These contributions are expected to be the seed of interesting discussions and debates. We are confident that the Conference will be fruitful and will contribute to the promotion of exchange of ideas and experiences related to various aspects of stability among the experts in the world, and to the development of science and technology in those fields.
We would like to wish foreign delegates a pleasant and enjoyable stay in Rio . I personally hope that you could have chances of having a new experience and observation of the culture and life of Brazil . The contact and more knowledge with delegates from other countries will help us to understand more each other in this global world.
It will be noticed that the papers submitted to this conference have been divided into 26 topics: IMO & weather criteria, safety of offshore floating units, probabilistic approaches, stability and naval architecture, fundamental aspects of parametric resonance, parametric resonance in realistic seaway, physical & numerical modelling for parametric resonance, stability of high speed vessels, environmental modeling, stability of naval vessels, nonlinear dynamics, manoeuvring in waves, intact stability and ship motions, damage stability of passenger ships, damage stability of naval vessels, ship survivability, risk based approaches, rules and standards applied to damage stability, progressive flooding, dynamics of damage stability, accidents investigations, safety in operations, stabilizing systems, CFD and wind heeling, stability of offshore vehicles and water on deck. Four workshops and two keynote lectures have been included in the technical program.
Since the number of papers was unexpectedly large, parallel sessions have been unavoidably arranged during three conference days. However, the parallel sessions have been arranged with extreme care in such a manner that papers with quite distinct approaches are presented at the same time so that the participants may be able to choose either one with minimum inconvenience. Nevertheless, the scheduling of the parallel sessions may still result in inconveniences to certain participants. The Organizing Committee would like to ask for the participants' understanding regarding this unavoidable situation. It is a direct consequence of the strong support we obtained, with a record number of participants.
I particularly wish to express our gratitude to the reviewers of the papers. Their voluntary work was of extreme help. Since the number of papers was large and papers were to be peer reviewed by at least two reviewers, we had to ask experts from all over the world, not necessarily members of conference committees, to help us in the task. Their response was very positive and has contributed enourmously to the enhancement of the quality of the papers.
May I record my deep appreciation and thanks to the sponsors. Thanks are also due to the Secretariat, to my colleagues from LabOceano and to my dear students.
Also special thanks are due to Prof. Dracos Vassalos, Chairman of the International Standing Committee, and to the workshop organizers: Mr. Gustavo Adolfo Vilela Castro, Dr. Paulo Mauricio Videiros, Prof. Naoya Umeda, Prof. Alberto Francescutto, Dr. Jan Otto de Kat and Prof. Apostolos Papanikolaou. We extend these special thanks to the members of the National Organizing Committee.
I would like to conclude my remarks by expressing my hope that the results of this conference will be used effectively by the designers and operators, and will also be of assistance to the activities of the IMO.
Allow me to wish you all a very successful Conference.
Marcelo A Santos Neves
Chairman, STAB 2006 |