On 14 December 2005 the Common Structural Rules for Double Hull Oil Tankers (CSR-OT) and Common Structural Rules for Bulk Carriers (CSR-BC) were unanimously adopted by the IACS Council for implementation on 1 April 2006. The Council was satisfied that these Rules were based on sound technical grounds, and achieved the goals of more robust and safer ships.
These two sets of Rules were developed independently and in order to remove variations and achieve consistency, IACS decided to harmonise these Rules. There is now a single set of Rules “Common Structural Rules for Bulk Carriers and Oil Tankers” (CSR BC & OT) comprising of two parts; Part One gives requirements common to both Bulk Carriers and Double Hull Oil Tankers and Part Two provides additional specialised requirements specific to either Bulk Carriers or Double Hull Oil Tankers.
IACS implemented the CSR-OT and CSR-BC maintenance program via the IACS CSR Knowledge Centre (KC). All the agreed Q&As are published on the IACS web site in order to assist its Member Societies and Industry in implementing the CSR in a uniform and consistent manner.
A Knowledge Centre (KC) for the CSR BC & OT was also implemented by IACS as an online repository of questions, observations and feedback during the development of these Rules and it will continue to be used to facilitate the management and maintenance of the CSR BC & OT. The IACS Knowledge Centre may be accessed by IACS Members only at the following link:
IACS organisational structure and work process and procedures pertaining to maintenance, harmonisation and further development of IACS CSR BC & OT are detailed in IACS Procedure Volume 4.
In Nov 2008 IACS launched the IACS CSR Tracking Database (www.iacs-csrtrack.org.uk) to provide users easy and quick access to full revision history of CSR Rules on a paragraph by paragraph basis.
Note: All the Q&As and CIs posted in this area are checked on a daily basis by IACS CSR Secretariat and updated, with new data if any.
Industry comment may be given via e-mail to csr@iacs.org.uk or via a Class Society member of IACS.
