A Study on the Effect on Fatigue Damage Due to Different Shipping Routes

Abstract

An important tool in optimizing the operation of ships on long voyages is weather routing, that is a method used to avoid rough weather and to find the minimal fuel, time or cost route between ports. Recently, weather routing of ships is increasingly recognized as an important contribution to safe, economical and reliable ship routes. Consequently, most ships follow weather routing and those ships are not challenged by extreme wave loads. Although that in the maritime industry fatigue failure is one of the most significant failure modes for ships structures, in the classification society rules, the ship structure fatigue assessment is performed without the consideration of weather routing. In addition, the ships that operate worldwide shipping routes would face different oceanographic conditions, i.e. North Atlantic or North Pacific routes, and those ships will face differences on the cumulative fatigue damage depending on the trade route.