Ballast water in ship operation is essential for a safe voyage. However ballast water can contain unwanted organisms that are the cause of disturbing the ecosystem by the transfer of potential invasive species. To prevent the destruction of the environment, the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ship''s Ballast Water and Sediments(BWM Convention) was adopted in 2004. BWMS(Ballast Water Management System) has been developed to prevent the transportation of organisms to another region in order to fulfill the requirements IMO(International Maritime Organization) regulations. Nowadays there are about 50 approved Ballast Water Management Systems of various types globally. The most common BWMS types are UV(Ultra Violet), Electrolysis and Ozone. Among these types there are many difficulties in determining the optimum type of BWMS which can be suitable for the user and designer’s requirements.
And although various types of BWMS in the world have been developed until now and applied to various ships, there has been no systematic basis for its selection and installation. Currently, the system selection and installation are as per ship owner’s suggestion or by easy installation point of view by the shipyard.
For that reason, definitive study has been performed to come up with the best alternatives with the best criteria which were to be met for the optimum type selection for BWMS development and optimum product selection for a certain vessel. During the course of this study multiple criteria were compared each other for a valid conclusion.
Henceforth, the results of this study not only aims to derive the optimum way to select the best and the most suitable BWMS and give a guide to the developers of BWMS and but also aims to come up with the optimum way to select the best and the most suitable BWMS for a certain vessel.
Keywords : BWMS(Ballast Water Management System), Optimum selection, Multiple criteria, AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process), UV(Ultra Violet), Electrolysis