An opening in the hull of a ship allowing direct passage from the working deck to the sea. This is used in offshore operations to pass remotely operated vehicles, subsea equipment etc.
Based on earlier experiences with various moonpool designs on offshore operation vessels, more knowledge is wanted to improve future designs for better safety and operability. For some of today's vessels large wave responses inside moonpools can occur in relatively calm sea conditions and cause hazards if water reaches deck level. Operability of a vessel is often limited by wave response characteristics of a moonpool.
With better knowledge on how to design moonpools, parameters like size, position in ship and damping zone can be tuned in an early stage of the vessel design to get a safer and better working moonpool.
