Arctic EER Today

Abstract

Technologies, engineering and analysis, and regulatory provisions relating to arctic Escape Evacuation and Rescue (EER) today and in development are reviewed. Current national and international regulatory performance based regime has necessitated the development of tools for the evaluation and setting of performance based goals such as availability and reliability requirements, mirrored in current Transport Canada and ISO standards. To facilitate setting of reliability targets in the Canadian standards, a multifaceted research and development program was initiated in parallel with its regulatory developments. Full scale manned and model tests, engineering and computer simulation, and world wide consultations and studies on human performance in life threatening conditions, comprise this R&D programme. Concurrently, industry and the private sector have addressed the frontier and arctic EER needs through analyses, development of novel systems, and participation in framing performance based standards. Use of conventional EER systems and technologies was found to have limited applicability in ice populated waters, requiring the development of systems and procedures suited to the environmental, operational, and logistical requirements of arctic offshore regions. The paper summarizes available and emerging regulatory, modeling and research, and technological developments in arctic EER and gives recommendations on a number of promising directions.