Fatigue damage in the side shells of ships

More than 40% of the registered fatigue cracks in ship structures are observed to occur in the side shell, more specifically in the connections of longitudinals to transverse web frames. The fatigue damage is caused partly by vertical and horizontal wave-induced hull bending and partly by outside water pressure on the side shell. Due to the non-linear nature of the outside water pressure the fatigue damage of the combined stress cannot be solved via a traditional frequency domain analysis. This paper solves the combination problem by application of a realistic wave model. The proposed model is used to analyze a segregated ballast tanker, and the results are compared to previously registered fatigue cracks. The analysis shows that it is very important to include the water pressure in the fatigue analysis, as this accounts for the majority of the expected fatigue damage. The analysis is performed for both I-shaped and L-shaped stiffeners.