Ulsan Port is the main port for handling liquid cargo because of natural environmental conditions and the distribution of port infrastructures in Korea. Damage to both liquid cargo vessels and the port structure caused by maritime accidents could have a serious impact on property and human lives as well as the marine environment. For safe navigation, the parties concerned should ensure the suitability of various design criteria at the harbor design stage. In this paper we analyze and compare various domestic and international harbor design criteria, and then apply each criteria to Ulsan port to evaluate its overall safety. Additionally, this paper specifies certain precautions in terms of reviewing a ship’s safety for each channel at Ulsan Port, and suggests possible improvements to optimize channel design.

• Woo-Lee Jeong(Former Researcher of Research Institute of Maritime Industry) Corresponding author