Ultimate strength of a box girder simulating the hull of a ship

Abstract

An important feature of ship design is the ability to describe the structural behaviour of the hull and to accurately predict its ultimate strength. Research on the ultimate strength of hulls has been carried out by many experimental research groups. Recently, the consensus reached is to simulate the behaviour of the hull by loading a box girder up to its ultimate strength. A box girder was tested at the Royal Military College of Canada. The objective of this experiment is to study the structural behaviour and compare the experimental results with the predictions of two computer codes. The construction of the model follows typical hull construction methods. The girder was subjected to pure bending until failure occurred. Provisions were taken so that collapse would occur due to buckling and not to plastic failure. Residual stresses and initial geometrical imperfections were measured and considered in the analysis. In previous publications, details of the design, fabrication, and loading were presented. In this paper, the experimental results are described and discussed.Key words: box girder, ship's hull, bending, ultimate strength, residual strength, residual stresses, initial imperfections.