Experimental and numerical investigation on the ultimate strength of a ship hull girder model with deck openings

Abstract

This paper presents an investigation on the ultimate strength of a ship hull girder model with openings. A model with relatively large openings in a group of compartments is designed and tested up to the ultimate bearing capacity under a pure sagging bending moment. The failure mode, the load-displacement curve and the ultimate load of the experimental model are analysed by the nonlinear finite element method. The ultimate load of the experimental model is also calculated using a progressive collapse method (Smith based method). The results of the numerical calculations are compared with the results of the model experiment and they are found to be in good agreement. The relative error between the numerical method and the experimental result is −3.9% and 1.6% for ABAQUS and LS-DYNA models respectively, and the relative error between the progressive collapse method and the test result is −1.3%. The experimental results of this paper can provide the basis for the validation of numerical simulations and theoretical methods, and they provide a reference for the design of the ultimate strength of similar ship structures.