M1 Ardhana Wicaksono (28J14108)

Assignment I
1) Title
Finite Element Method on Ship Structures Analysis
2) Source of information
Kamel, H. A., Liu, D. (1971). Application of the Finite Element Method to Ship Structures, Computers & Structures, I,
pp. 103-130, Pergamon Press, Great Britain.
3) Contents
a) The product for which the FEM simulation is employed
Ship, particularly the hulls structures.
b) The FEM is employed to what kind of problem
Ships, which built by thin steel plates, are always subjected to shear forces, bending moment, tensile & compressive
stress, hotspot stress, and so on. These forces and loadings are induced by the environmental loading (mainly wave
action), ships cargo, and ship structure itself. Moreover, some particular ships have their own structural
characteristic that constitutes specific structural concerns. Examples are as follows:
- Oil tankers
In large size, oil tanker may displace up to 300,000-400,000 tons of sea water, with their bottom being submerged
more than 20 meters below the water surface. This condition leads to high pressure heads and further causes high
shear forces to develop in the web plating of girders and transverses near the bottom. The large depth of the web
also increase the vulnerability of elastic instability.
In addition, due to extreme length and depth of these tankers, the distributed wave and cargo loading along the
ship length causes bending of the hull, which results a high tensile and compressive stresses in the hull girder.
These loadings, combined with lateral pressure from sea and cargo, render the plating susceptible to buckling.
- Containerships and bulk carriers
Beside bending, a major strength consideration in the design of containership or open-deck vessels is torsion.
Containership has particularly wide hatch openings over almost full length of the ship, in order to facilitate direct
loading and unloading of cargo containers. As a consequence, this kind of ship lacks of torsional rigidity,
compared to vessels having smaller deck openings. The torsional loadings itself arise primarily from nonsymmetrical action of oblique sea waves and non-symmetrical loading of cargo containers themselves. Due to the
twisting of the vessel, the sides tend to deform in the transverse plane and experience longitudinal warping. If the
hatch covers do not have sufficient strength and elasticity, it can be permanently deformed and damaged.
In addition, the vessel also experiences flexural bending and high stresses develop at the longitudinal hatch edges.
Stress concentration problem can be magnified when the resultant stresses are superimposed with the hatch corner
stresses.
Above examples shows the ship structural problems which need to be evaluated, such as longitudinal strength,
structure deformation, elastic instability, torsional rigidity, stress concentration, and others. Engineers must conduct
analysis and computation on those problems, in order to reach a valid and economical solution. Anyhow, a

particular ship design is usually being used for a small numbers of ships, often only one. Therefore, it is required to
seek more efficient and inexpensive tools in performing structural computation, so that the accurate analysis can be
done in such reasonable cost.
In this sense, finite element method (FEM) is considered to be powerful tool to evaluate ship structural strength.
FEM is employed to the two-dimensional analyses of a webframe, three-dimensional analyses of a short segment of
the ship, and also three-dimensional analysis of a complete vessel.
c) What was found by using the FEM and what kind of improvement is made to the product?
By the utilization of FEM, some structural phenomenons can be accurately observed as a result of analysis, such as,
stress distribution, displacement, elasticity, and others. It should be noted that these results can represents the ship
structural behavior in a local segment or a whole ship, depends on the analysis scale. Fig. 1 depictures a ship hull
structures with mesh.

Fig. 1. Hull structure with variable size mesh (Kamel & Liu, 1971)
Since FEM is considered to be able producing an accurate response of the structure due to loads and forces,
improvements on ship design can be achieved. For example, if the ship structural behavior under wave loads can be
obtained in good detail, we can optimize our design so that the ship will possess higher structural strength and
performance, without causing a hike on the fabrication cost.
d) What do you need to study to understand the FEM used in your example
To thoroughly understand the application of FEM in this journal paper, I have to study:
- Concept of loads and forces acting on the ship
- Stress analysis, including stress distribution, buckling, yielding
- Theory of plate and shell
- Elasticity and rigidity of ship
- Concept of two and three-dimensional elements
- Meshing technique, and others.
e) Thought or impression
Based on this journal paper and from another source of information, I think FEM is a great and reliable tool to
investigate the ship structural behavior precisely. This can help the naval architects to produce ship designs with
higher quality, so that the ships will have a higher structural strength, seaworthiness, and seakindliness, even in a
severe seaway.