Measuring hull girder deformations on a 9300 TEU containership

Abstract

A 9300 TEU container carrier was equipped in 2006 with instrumentation aimed at wave induced accelerations, and motions. In 2010 the system was extended with strain sensors to include structural loads. Section loads for vertical bending could be readily obtained but the originally intended derivation of horizontal bending and torsion from the measured strains was found to be unreliable. This paper addresses an alternative approach that was adopted in the post processing of results. In particular the concept to use acceleration sensors to capture global hull deformations along the length of the hull, and the use of a data fusion procedure to obtain section loads from combined sensor data and finite element calculations. The approach is illustrated by comparison of actually measured accelerations and local strains with values obtained from the data fusion model. It is concluded that the approach is promising but in need of further validation and development. In particular the number and shapes of the modes used may not have been sufficient to represent the true deflection and thus strain distributions along the high loaded areas.