The simplest case is to consider the
location and length of damage in the longitudinal direction.
This would be sufficient for ships with no longitudinal and
horizontal watertight structural divisions.
With the damage location x and damage
length y as defined in figure 1, all possible damages can be
represented by points in a triangle which is also shown in this
figure.
All damages which
open single compartments of length
l i are
represented in figure 1 by points in triangles with the base
l i ,. Triangles with the base
l
i +
l j (where j = i+1)
enclose points corresponding to damages opening either
compartment i, or compartment j, or both of them.
Correspondingly, the points in the parallelogram ij represent
damages which open both the compartments i and j.
Figure 1 
Damage location x and damage
length y are random variables. Their distribution density
f (
x , y ) can be derived from the damage statistics. The
meaning of
f ( x , y ) is as follows (see figure 2): the
total volume between the x-y plane and the surface given by
f
( x , y ) equals one and represents the probability that
there is damage (this has been assumed to be certain). The
volume above a triangle corresponding to damage which opens a
compartment represents the probability that this compartment is
opened. In a similar manner for all areas in the x-y plane which
correspond to the opening of compartments or group of
compartments, there are volumes which represent the probability
that the considered compartments or group of compartments are
opened.
Figure 2 
The probability that a
compartment or a group of adjacent compartments is opened is
expressed by the factor p
i as calculated according
to regulation 25-5.
Consideration of damage location x and damage length y only
would be fully correct in the case of ships with pure transverse
subdivision. However, there are very few, if any, such ships -
all normally have a double bottom, at least.
In such a case, the probability of
flooding a compartment should be split up into the following
three components: probability of flooding the double bottom
only, probability of flooding the space above the double bottom
only and probability of flooding both the space above and the
double bottom itself (see figure 3). For each of these cases
there may be a different probability that the ship will survive
in the flooded condition. A way out of this dilemma, which may
be used in applying these new regulations, is to assume that the
most unfavourable vertical extent of damage (out of the three
possibilities) occurs with the total probability p. Therefore
the contribution to survival probability made by more favourable
cases is neglected. That the concept is still meaningful for
comparative purposes follows from the fact that the error made
by neglecting favourable effects of horizontal subdivision is
not great and the more important influence of longitudinal
damage location and extension is fully covered.
Figure 3 
Some examples for dealing
with other cases of horizontal subdivision are given in appendix
1.