Structural Reliability Analysis of Ship Hulls Accounting for Collision or Grounding Damage

Classical structural reliability analysis of intact ship hulls is extended to the case of ships with collision or grounding damages.Still water load distribution and residual bending moment capacity are included as random variables in the limit state equation.The probability density functions of these random variables are defined based on random damage parameters given by the Marine Environment Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organization,while the proposed reliability formulation is consistent with international recommendations and thus may be valuable in the development of rules for accidental limit states.The methodology is applied on an example of an Aframax oil tanker.The proposed approach captures in a rational way complex interaction of different pertinent variables influencing safety of damaged ship structure.

Emerging Challenges for Numerical Simulations of Quasi-Static Collision Experiments on Laser-Welded Thin-Walled Steel Structures

This paper re-evaluates recently published quasi-static tests on laser-welded thin-walled steel structures in order to discuss the fundamental challenges in collision simulations based on finite element analysis.Clamped square panels were considered,with spherical indenter positioned at the mid-span of the stiffeners and moved along this centerline in order to change the load-carrying mechanism of the panels.Furthermore,the use of panels with single-sided flat bar stiffening and web-core sandwich panels enabled the investigation of the effect of structural topology on structural behavior and strength.The changes in loading position and panel topology resulted in different loading,structural and material gradients.In web-core panels,these three gradients occur at the same locations making the panel global responses sensitive for statistical variations and the failure process time-dependent.In stiffened panel with reduced structural gradient,this sensitivity and time-dependency in failure process is not observed.These observations set challenges to numerical simulations due to spatial and temporal discretization as well as the observed microrotation,which is beyond the currently used assumptions of classical continuum mechanics.Therefore,finally,we discuss the potential of non-classical continuum mechanics as remedy to deal with these phenomena and provide a base for necessary development for future.

Critical Void Volume Fraction Identification Based on Mesoscopic Damage Model for NVA Shipbuilding Steel

NVA mild steel is a commonly used material in the shipbuilding industry.An accurate model for description of this material’s ductile fracture behaviour in numerical simulation is still a challenging task.In this paper,a new method for predicting the critical void volume fraction fc in the Guson-Tvergaard-Needleman(GTN)model is introduced to describe the ductile fracture behaviour of NVA shipbuilding mild steel during ship collision and grounding scenarios.Most of the previous methods for determination of the parameter fc use a converse method,which determines the values of the parameters through comparisons between experi-mental results and numerical simulation results but with high uncertainty.A new method is proposed based on the Hill,Bressan,and Williams hypothesis,which reduces the uncertainty to a satisfying extent.To accurately describe the stress-strain relationship of materials before and after necking,a combination of the Voce and Swift models is used to describe the material properties of NVA mild steel.A user-defined material subroutine has been developed to enable the application of the new parameter deter-mination method and its implementation in the finite element software LS-DYNA.It is observed that the model can accurately describe structural damage by comparing the numerical simulation results with those of experiments;thus,the results demon-strate the model’s capacity for structural response prediction in ship collision and grounding scenario simulations。