DHI Ballast Water Centre – quality and efficient testing of ballast water management systems

DHI’s test facility in Hundested, Denmark, is located with easy access to high quality source water for type approval testing and can simultaneously accommodate five ballast water management systems 

Type approval tests of ballast water management systems must be conducted in accordance with the standards defined by IMO and US Coast Guard. In addition to these requirements, it is expected that the tests are conducted according to the International Standard ISO 17025. The ISO 17025 is used for accreditation and contains all requirements that testing laboratories have to meet if the wish to demonstrate that they operate a management system, are technically competent, and are able to generate technically valid results. From the start of 2017, DHI decided to perform and report the type approval tests of ballast water management systems as accredited tests with external audit and inspection by the Danish Accreditation Fund (DANAK). “The formal testing under the ISO 17025 standard helps us to improve our quality to the high level we want to deliver, and DANAK and the Independent Laboratory will survey our quality management and technical procedures – to our knowledge, DHI is the sole provider of biological performance tests of ballast water management systems conducted with ISO 17025 accreditation”, says Torben Madsen, Vice President at DHI. “Furthermore, the Independent Laboratory and the manufacturer do not have to verify DHI’s compliance with ISO 17025 by inspection of procedures, test protocols and reports, as this will be facilitated by DANAK.”

The IMO G8 guidelines adopted in October 2016 contain several new requirements to the land-based test of ballast water management systems. The IMO G8 guidelines incorporate the experience gained during the last decade and provide guidance on the relevant challenge conditions for the testing of specific ballast water treatment technologies. DHI normally combines the type approval requirements in the IMO G8 guidelines and the US Coast Guard standards in the same test. This means that the test report can serve the dual purpose of IMO and US type approval, whereby the manufacturer saves time and money. Meeting all requirements is a lot of work, and in addition the independent laboratories seek to identify the treatment capacity and limitations of the specific technology. “We receive requests to prepare test waters that contain different mixtures of complex and simple organic compounds together with the organic carbon in the natural water - the purpose is to modify the properties of the test water and challenge the systems in different ways”, says Gitte Ingelise Petersen, Head of Department at DHI. “The IMO G8 guidelines and the US Coast Guard standards require the testing organisation to document that the challenge conditions are representative for the natural environment, and this includes the abiotic properties and the diversity of living aquatic organisms in the test water.” DHI’s procedures have been thoroughly validated, and the results of the validation studies are documented in reports that are made available to the Independent Laboratory. High quality standards and efficient work processes are the main reasons why many manufacturers select DHI for the type approval testing of their equipment. As an example, the performance testing after installation of the ballast water management system on board a ship is time consuming and frequently delays the type approval test. DHI completed 67 shipboard test cycles during 37 voyages in 2017 – we believe that this is a world record.