A comparative study of conventional and sandwich plate side-shell using finite element method

Abstract

Ship material technology needs lightweight and strong enough material, where one of the solutions is a sandwich plate. Steel faceplate and room temperature cured polyurethane elastomer (RTC-PU) cores are frequently used configurations on ship sandwich plates. But RTC-PU has a relatively high cost. Polyurethane elastomer casting has a lower cost and easy-to-obtain. More economical core materials can be achieved by combining casting polyurethane elastomer with fiberglass, so fiberglass-reinforced polyurethane elastomer (FRPU) composite is obtained. In this study, FRPU is used as a core for ship sandwich plates. Strength and weight assessment of conventional and side-shell sandwich plates were performed to determine the benefits of applying the sandwich plate to side-shell tankers using the Finite Element Method. The application of the sandwich plate results in a stress reduction of 27.02% and a weight reduction of 4.2% compared to conventional side-shell structure. The highest stress of the side-shell sandwich plate is below the steel yield stress so that the sandwich plate is acceptable for the side-shell structure. The implementation of sandwich plates can reduce the weight of ship structure so that the ship’s payload can be increased and its operation will be more efficient.