Investigation on the Post-Ultimate Strength Behaviour of Damaged Stiffened Plate of Ship Structure

Post-ultimate strength behaviour of ship structure can directly reflect its changing tendency of load carrying capacity. When the external load exerted on the ship structure exceeds the ultimate strength, sharply reduction of load carrying capacity will occur, especially for the damaged ship structure induced from grounding or collision. This paper focuses on the investigation on the post-ultimate strength behaviour of damaged stiffened plate of ship structure by using FEM, a series of stiffened plate modeling with different kinds of cracks are constructed. The parameters of crack includes length, width, depth, plate thickness and distribution direction. The post-ultimate strength behaviour of stiffened plate with cracks and intact ones are compared. Conclusion can be drawn as follows: (1) crack can induce the reduction of ultimate strength of stiffened plate, meanwhile, the stiffness and its load carrying capacity decrease accordingly. (2) in terms of stiffened thin plate, length of crack has a significant influence on the post-ultimate strength behaviour, the width of the crack has a huge influence on ultimate strength while the depth of crack has little influence; in terms of stiffened thick plate, the influence of crack depth on the post-ultimate strength behaviour becomes obvious. The width of the crack influence the post-ultimate strength behaviour a lot. (3) compare to the transverse crack, the influence of longitudinal crack on the post-ultimate strength behaviour is not obvious.