Design Analysis and Fatigue Testing of the Typical Structural Details of Aluminium Ships

Aluminium alloy is widely used structural design in light-weighting design. Due to the material strength loss in welding, fatigue strength of typical joints fabricated by aluminium alloy is more sensitive than steel joints. The aim of this study is to investigate one aluminium detail of the longitudinal through the transverse, with high-performance of fatigue strength compared to the original design. The alloy of longitudinal is AA6082-T6 and the other components (including plate and transverse) is AA5083-H2. Firstly, eight schemes of structural details with various configurations of bracket and / or stiffener are designed. Based on the finite element analyses, the stress distribution of panels with eight designed details is obtained under typical loading condition respectively. According to the principle of hot spot stress being minimum, the optimal detail is determined, which using stiffener reinforced on both sides of transverse. Secondly, the fatigue tests of the optimal detail were designed and carried out. The testing panels consist of 2-span and 3 longitudinal stiffeners, and the frame with optimal joints is located in the middle of the panels. The test panels were simply supported at two ends with applied cyclic loading in the middle panel. According to the designed loading scheme (loading level, frequency, etc.), the fatigue tests of the panels with typical detail were carried out. The hot stress and the cycle times of the typical detail under different load levels were obtained. Based on the test data, the S-N curve of the typical detail in aluminium alloy is established. Finally, the fatigue strength assessment of the typical detail in target ship is performed based on the Miner’s linear cumulative damage theory and established S-N curve. The results show that the fatigue life of proposed optimal detail meets the design requirements of the target ship. The S-N curve of the typical detail made of AA6082-T6 obtained in this study can be also used for other aluminium ships with similar structural details.