Extensive study on the design loads used for strength assessment of tanker and bulk carrier structures

ClassNK has undertaken wide-ranging basic research covering many aspects related to the safety of ship structures, including design loads, structural analysis, strength assessment of buckling, collapse, and fatigue, and rational corrosion margins to develop new design standards which have transparency and consistency. Among the wide-ranging basic research, this article summarizes the results of extensive work on the design loads used for strength assessments of tanker and bulk carrier structures. The main aim of the research was to develop practical estimation methods of design loads with rational technical backgrounds relating to the actual loads acting on the primary structural members of tankers and bulk carriers. During this study, we proposed the following methodology. Design sea states that closely resemble the actual sea states which are considered to be the most severe for hull structures. Find practical estimation methods for the design sea states by parametric studies using the results of series calculations on representative tankers and bulk carriers. Find practical estimation methods for design regular waves which will result in the same level of stresses as those induced in irregular waves under the design sea states. We also briefly introduced some practical estimation methods for the design loads, such as ship motions, accelerations, hull-girder bending moments, and hydrodynamic pressures that are induced under design regular waves. The findings in this study have been summarized and implemented in the new design standards for tanker and bulk carrier structures.Updated from the Japanese original which won the 2003 SNAJ prize (J Soc Nav Archit Jpn 2002; 191:195–207; 2002; 191:208–220; and 2002; 192:723–733)     

Practical estimation method of the design loads for primary structural members of bulk carriers

Various design loads used in the strength evaluation of ship structures have been introduced currently by classification societies. As most of these design loads have been determined as standard loads for the sake of convenience, the relationships between the design loads and the sea states actually encountered by ships seem to be weak. Accordingly, it may be difficult to refer and utilize them as fundamental design concepts for ship designers or as operational guidelines for ship operators. In view of this background, various efforts (Trans. West-Jpn. Soc. Nav. Archi. 89 (1995) 191; 93 (1997) 121; Jap Shipbuild. Mar. Eng. 2 (1967) 13; Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering 1999; Mar. Struct. 13 (2000) 495; J. Ship. Res. 45 (2001) 228; J. Mar. Sci. Technol. 6 (2002) 122; J. Soc. Nav. Archi. Jpn. 186 (1999) 319; Technical guide regarding the strength evaluation of hull structures, 1999; Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, 1995; Mar. Struct. 10 (1997) 611; Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Practical Design of Ships and Other Floating Structures, Shanghai, Vol. 2, China, 2001, p. 1089; Mar. Struct. 12 (1999) 171; Mar. Struct. 4 (1991) 295) have been made in recent years for developing estimation methods of the design sea states in a rational manner. Furthermore, for more practical purposes, the authors have developed practical estimation methods of the design sea states, the design regular waves and the design loads having transparent and consistent backgrounds to the actual loads acting on primary structural members of tankers (Mar. Struct. 16 (2003) 275).In this paper, it is firstly confirmed that the proposed methods for tanker structures can also be applied to the primary structural members of bulk carriers. Furthermore, the necessary modifications are carried out considering the specific structural types and loading conditions of bulk carriers in order to improve the estimating accuracy of the proposed design loads. Finally, comparisons between the results obtained by the structural analysis of a hold model applying the proposed design loads and long-term values of stresses by the most advanced direct structural analyses for different loading conditions are introduced and discussed in detail.     

A practical method for torsional strength assessment of container ship structures

Container ship structures are characterized by large hatch openings. Due to this structural property, they are subject to large diagonal deformations of hatch openings and warping stresses under complex torsional moments in waves. This necessitates torsional strength assessment of hull girder of container ships in their structural design stage. In this paper, a practical method for torsional strength assessment of container ship structures with transparent and consistent background is discussed based on the results from up-to-date analyses. In order to estimate the torsional response characteristics as accurately as possible, three-dimensional Rankine source method, after being validated by tank tests, is employed for estimation of wave loads on a container ship, and FE analyses are conducted on the entire-ship model under the estimated loads. Then, a dominant regular wave condition under which the torsional response of the container ship becomes maximum is specified. Design loads for torsional strength assessment that give torsional response equivalent to the long-term predicted values of torsional response are investigated based on the torsional moments on several container ships under the specified dominant wave condition. An appropriate combination of stress components to estimate the total hull girder stress is also discussed.     

不同海况下艏部砰击及鞭状效应的试验与数值分析

为了更深入地研究船舶的鞭状效应,在拖曳水池中对某船进行了艏部砰击及鞭状效应分段模型试验研究。提出了一种可以考虑砰击力的非线性水弹性计算方法。并改进了传统的分段模型,采用变截面梁对船体刚度进行模拟以更好地接近实船。在规则波迎浪下观察到了严重的艏部砰击现象。试验数据表明,当波高从5.6m增大到21m时,由于鞭状效应原因,总弯矩相比低频波浪弯矩的增大值从24.64%增长到92.02%。最后,将不同海况下的测量结果与基于线性与非线性水弹性理论的计算结果进行了比较分析,初步验证了文中方法和程序在预报船体波浪载荷中的适用性。     

水面舰船迎浪航行时大幅运动预报的切片算法

将预报船舶运动和波浪载荷的切片理论加以扩展，应用于有限深水中船舶迎浪航行时大幅纵向运动和波浪载荷的时域求解。预报结果体现出考虑了湿表面及化后引起的船舶运动和受力的非线性性质。本计算方法简便、实用，适用于船舶纵向大幅运动预报。     

Structural design of process decks for floating production, storage and offloading units

This work analyzes the influence of ship motion and deformation on the structural design of decks to support production plants in floating production, storage and offloading units (FPSOs). These decks are space frames with lengths ranging from 30 to 100 mr, with a variable number of rigid supports linked to the ship hull. The deck and ship hull are modeled together for naval and structural analysis. A global, coupled analysis is performed considering the deck and ship structures; sea loads are evaluated by means of probabilistic methods.     

用于轴系校中的船体变形计算研究

船体变形是影响船舶推进轴系校中质量的一个非常重要的动态因素.在综合考虑引起船体变形的三种主要因素的基础上,以76000t成品油轮为例,计算了极限装载状态下的重力分布和极限海况时的波浪载荷.通过对整船有限元模型合理施加重力、浮力及环境温度载荷,并模拟船舶水弹性约束,得到船体二层底的局部变形,为在轴系校中计算中计入船体变形的影响奠定了基础.     

Experimental study of slam-induced stresses in a containership

Experiments for the ship motions and sea loads were carried out on a segmented model of a container ship in ballast condition. Comparisons between the measurements and the theoretical results were carried out for the vertical motions and bending moments. For the evaluation of the primary stresses it is assumed that the total vertical bending moment induced by waves is divided into one component obtained by the linear theory and another one is due to the slamming loads. Several formulations for the determination of the slamming loads are compared with experimental results. The vibratory response of the model is calculated by modelling the hull with rotational springs and rigid links. Linear finite elements with a consistent mass formulation are adopted for the structural model and the response is obtained by modal superimposing and direct integration methods.     

Shaft line alignment analysis taking ship construction flexibility and deformations into consideration

Proper shaft line alignment is one of the most important actions during the design of the propulsion system. Usually, a beam model of the power transmission system is isolated from the ship hull. Therefore, determining the correctness of the boundary conditions is one of the most important and difficult issue during the marine shaft line alignment calculations. In the author's opinion stiffness and damping characteristics of the journal bearings’ oil film, ship hull and bearings frame should be taken into account. Ship hull deformations, under different load conditions and regular sea waves, are also analysed. The presented numerical analysis method is compared and verified by measurements on real ships.     

New insight into the wave-induced nonlinear vertical load effects of ultra-large container ships based on experiments

Accurate estimation of the wave-induced extreme hogging vertical bending moment (VBM) is of vital importance for the design of container ships because container ships are normally under hogging conditions in still water. According to the empirical formulas proposed by the classification society rules, the design hogging VBM can be approximately 20 % smaller than the design sagging VBM for vessels with small block coefficients. High-order harmonic components in the vertical load effects, which are induced by the nonlinearities in the hydrodynamic forces and ship hull geometry, contribute to the asymmetry. Previous studies have shown that the nonlinear hydrostatic and Froude–Krylov forces increase the sagging VBM significantly. Current numerical tools are able to reveal this asymmetry to a certain extent. There is, however, little focus on the nonlinear pressure under the bow bottom, which is a more likely contributor to the hogging VBM. Several unexpected phenomena have been observed for large container ships. The wave-frequency sagging and hogging VBMs followed each other closely, and hence did not reflect the significant nonlinear factors as expected. In this paper, the test data of two (8600-TEU and 13000-TEU) ultra-large containership models in both regular and irregular head waves are systematically studied. In regular waves, the influence of the second and third harmonics on the fundamental hogging peaks and sagging troughs is estimated by comparing both the amplitude and phase difference relative to the first harmonic peaks. In irregular waves, the focus is on the statistical characteristics of the wave-induced nonlinear vertical load effects. To achieve a balance between results in regular and irregular waves, the influence of the second harmonics is evaluated through bispectral analysis.     

A design for ship stabilization by activated antiroll tanks

An activated antiroll tank system design for ship roll reduction was investigated. Considering the dynamics of the ship motion, tank flow, and variable-pitch impeller, a control law is derived based on optimal control and estimation theory. Finally, a series of numerical computations for a 1174 tonne ship without an antiroll tank system, with a passive tank system, and with the proposed activated antiroll tank system is performed. The results show that the proposed activated tank system has superior antiroll properties for free rolling, regular, and irregular sea loads to the passive tank system. In addition, this design has a very low sensitivity to variations in ship and tank dynamics. It shows that the proposed system is reliable and valid for practical use.     

Hull-girder reliability of new generation oil tankers

A series of new generation oil tankers is presently under construction. These ships differ from traditional oil tankers by their unusual form and therefore direct hydrodynamic analysis is used to determine design vertical wave bending moments instead of adopting IACS rule values. The purpose of the paper is to quantify changes in hull-girder reliability resulting from the new design features. To achieve this, first-order reliability analysis is carried out with respect to ultimate collapse bending moment of the midship cross section of a new generation oil tanker and of a conventional “rule” designed oil tanker. The stochastic model of wave-induced bending moment is derived from direct hydrodynamic analysis performed according to IACS Recommendation No. 34 Standard Wave Data, Rev 1, 2000. The probability distribution of the still water bending moment is assumed based on the data from loading manuals. The model uncertainties of linear wave loads, non-linearity of the response as well as load combination factors are included in the reliability formulation. The reliability analysis is performed for three relevant loading conditions: full load, ballast and partial load and for two states of the hull: the “as-built” hull and “corroded” hull according to anticipated 20-year corrosion. One of the most interesting conclusions from the study is that the annual hull-girder reliability of new generation oil tanker is increased considerably compared to the conventional oil tanker. Sensitivity and parametric studies are performed with respect to random variables representing modelling uncertainties. The results of a sensitivity study enable sorting of pertinent variables according to their relative importance, while parametric study is used to quantify changes in the reliability indices for moderate variation of input parameters. Furthermore, some other results and discussions are presented pointing out the benefits of introducing the ship reliability methods in design practice, especially if this refers to new designs.     

A unified seakeeping and maneuvering analysis of ships in regular waves

The behavior of a ship in regular waves during maneuvering was studied by using a two-time scale model. The maneuvering analysis was based on Söding’s (Schiffstechnik 1982; 29:3–29) nonlinear slender-body theory generalized to account for heel. Forces and moments due to rudder, propeller, and viscous cross-flow follow from the state-of-the-art procedures. The developed unified theory of seakeeping and maneuvering was verified and validated for calm water by comparing it with experimental and calculated zigzag and circle maneuvers. Linear wave-induced motions and loads were determined by generalizing the Salvesen-Tuck-Faltinsen (Trans SNAME 1970; 78:250–287) strip theory. The mean second-order wave loads in incident regular deep water waves in oblique sea conditions were estimated by the potential flow theories of Faltinsen et al. (Proc 13th Symp Naval Hydrody 1980), Salvesen (Proc Intl Symp Dynam Mar Vehicl Struct Wave 1974), and Loukakis and Sclavounos (J Ship Res 1978; 22:1–19). The considered theories cover the whole range of important wavelengths. Comparisons between the different mean second-order wave load theories and available experimental data were carried out for different ship hull forms when the ship was advancing forward on a straight course. The mentioned methods have been incorporated into the maneuvering model. Their applicability from the perspective of the maneuvering ability of the selected types of ships was investigated in given wave environments. The wave conditions are valid for realistic maneuvering cases in open coastal areas. It was demonstrated that the incident waves may have an important influence on the maneuvering behavior of a ship. The added resistance, mean second-order transverse force, and yaw moment also play important roles.     

超大型 VLCC 波激振动和砰击振动模型试验研究

船舶的波激振动和砰击振动对船舶结构的安全性有较大影响。文章以一艘超大型 VLCC 为研究对象,通过变截面梁分段模型试验方法对船舶在规则波和不规则波中波激振动和砰击振动响应进行了比较分析,介绍了船模波浪载荷试验中模型的设计原则,通过静水试验得到了船体梁垂向振动频率特性、振动阻尼和静水兴波弯矩等参数,通过规则波和不规则波试验分析了波高、波浪周期和装载状态等因素对波激振动和砰击振动的影响。该文的研究结果对大型船舶的结构设计具有一定的指导意义。     

Fatigue damage calculation for oil tanker and container ship structures

The fatigue behaviour of longitudinal stiffeners of oil tankers and container ships, subjected to dynamic loads, is analysed. The following dynamic load components are considered: hull girder vertical wave bending moment, alone and combined with the horizontal wave bending moment, hydrodynamic pressure and inertial forces caused by cargo acceleration.

The spectral method was selected to calculate the fatigue damage, based on S—N curves and Miner's rule. Following this approach, the fatigue damage may be calculated as a function of a stress parameter Ω_p, which represents the cumulative effect of wave induced loads in the unit of time and incorporates the combined effects of stress level and its occurring frequency.

Simple formulas for Ω_p of oil tankers and container ships are given, obtained from the results of hydrodynamic analyses performed on several ships, in different wave environments.

Several examples show the applicability of the methods to real ship structures. The method, however, still needs to be calibrated because of the simplifying hypotheses introduced in the loading conditions.     

晃荡对CSR油船设计的影响

为明确船舶营运过程中晃荡载荷对不同船型液货舱构件的影响,基于《散货船和油船结构共同规范》,分析晃荡载荷的形成及决定晃荡载荷的因素,结合纵向和横向晃荡在油船中的具体载荷水平,分析晃荡运动对CSR油船液货舱结构的影响,以VLCC制荡舱壁为优化目标,提出新的设计方案,采用MSC.Patran&Nastran有限元分析软件,论证制荡舱壁局部开孔的可行性。     

Review of ship slamming loads and responses

The paper presents an overview of studies of slamming on ship structures. This work focuses on the hull slamming, which is one of the most important types of slamming problems to be considered in the ship design process and the assessment of the ship safety. There are three main research aspects related to the hull slamming phenomenon, a) where and how often a slamming event occurs, b) slamming load prediction and c) structural response due to slamming loads. The approaches used in each aspect are reviewed and commented, together with the presentation of some typical results. The methodology, which combines the seakeeping analysis and slamming load prediction, is discussed for the global analysis of the hull slamming of a ship in waves. Some physical phenomena during the slamming event are discussed also. Recommendations for the future research and developments are made.     

不同航速下船体波浪诱导运动和载荷计算研究

应用三维时域水动力理论,以挪威船级社（DNV）的WASIM程序系统作为主要工具,分析研究了一条在国际航线上航行的某一集装箱船的水动力特性,包括船体运动与波浪诱导载荷的规律,给出了不同航速下的船体运动特性和剖面诱导载荷百年一遇长期预报结果,深入分析了船体的航速效应,为船体设计中船体波浪载荷设计提供了参考依据。     

波激振动和砰击颤振对大型油船疲劳强度影响研究

文章给出线性波激振动和砰击颤振引起的大型油船结构疲劳贡献度的计算方法。基于三维线性水弹性理论可计算得到包括刚体和2节点的振动模态下的垂向弯矩的传递函数,采用谱分析法对某30万吨油船进行结构疲劳强度计算,分析波激振动对船体结构疲劳损伤影响;基于二维非线性波浪载荷程序（含砰击颤振的波浪载荷）,采用时域方法对该油船进行船体梁弯矩计算,分析砰击颤振对船体梁弯矩及疲劳载荷的影响;结果表明对于该类大型油船波激振动和砰击颤振对船体的结构疲劳损伤的影响不可忽略。     

Estimation of directional wave spectra and hull structural responses based on measured hull data on 14,000 TEU large container ships

To ensure hull structural strength of container ships in association with their increase in size, it is very important to grasp the hull stress histories all over the hull structure in actual sea state. However, ordinary hull stress monitoring systems are insufficient for this purpose because of the small number of stress sensors actually practicable. Therefore, in this paper, we discuss an approach to reproduce the hull stress responses which are not measured based on the estimated wave spectrum from the limited measurement data. To achieve this, we introduce a new model to estimate directional wave spectra based on measured ship stress responses and ship response functions, and further we estimate other ship responses using the model. To model an arbitrarily shaped directional wave distribution, the 360° direction is discretized into 36 directions of 10-degree intervals instead of using a directional distribution function, and in each direction, the wave spectrum is represented using the Ochi (3P) spectrum with three parameters (average wave period, significant wave height, and kurtosis). The authors discuss the evaluation results based on two stress response combinations, and a comparison is made between the sea state estimates made by the proposed method and the ocean wave hindcast database (JWA). Furthermore, by comparing the significant values and the spectra of the measured response of the ship with the estimated response based on both the estimated sea state by the proposed method and the hindcast sea state, the accuracies of the proposed method and the hindcast method are discussed in terms of ship stress estimation at non-instrumented locations.