AI & Simulation to Create a Common Strategic Engineering Framework to Support Sustainability

Within the current economic context, ports represent fundamental hubs for global trade, allowing the development of countries' economies. However, the nature of ports and the operations within them makes ports dangerous and complex environments at the same time. Accidents involving dangerous substances could have impacts not only on the port, but also on the surrounding areas. For this reason, training exercises and decision support tools are used to draft emergency plans, to be used when accidents occur. The main purpose of this thesis is to illustrate advantages of introduction of innovative oil spill model and a dense gas diffusion model in the context of decision-making and training in maritime ports, as to support environmental assessment between different scenarios. Having to take into account numerous complex factors, these models have been studied with innovative approaches through the integration of modeling and simulation tools, data analysis and the use of artificial intelligence. The models were finally tested within a seaport simulation system, within predefined scenarios, where models were positively evaluated by the Subject Matter Experts. Therefore, this thesis will first illustrate the port context and associated dangers and hazards, highlight the importance of training and simulation-based decision support tools, and finally detail the development of the two environmental models and results.