Introduction
With the increase of ship size and speed, shipboard vibration becomes a great concern in the design and
construction of the vessels. Excessive ship vibration is to be avoided for passenger comfort and crew
habitability. In addition to undesired effects on humans, excessive ship vibration may result in the fatigue
failure of local structural members or malfunction of machinery and equipment.
These Guidance Notes are to provide users, specifically shipyards, naval architects, and ship owners, with
practical guidance on the concept design to avoid excessive ship vibration at an early design stage. If simple
procedures are followed with insight and good judgment in the concept design stage, then the difficult
countermeasures and corrections at the subsequent design stages may be avoided in most cases.
These Guidance Notes also assist with the finite element analysis (FEA) based vibration analysis procedure
to predict the vibration response and evaluate the design in detail design stage. The vibration analysis procedure
represents the most current analysis practice in ABS. These Guidance Notes also offer guidelines on the
vibration measurement procedure during the sea trials and the acceptance criteria on vibration limits based
on international standards and practice in ABS