Methods for ultimate limit state assessment of ships and ship-shaped offshore structures: Part II stiffened panels

The present paper is Part II of a series of three papers on methods useful for the ultimate limit state assessment of ships and ship-shaped offshore structures. In contrast to Part I [Paik et al., 2007a. Methods for ultimate limit state assessment of ships and ship-shaped offshore structures: Part I unstiffened plates, Ocean Engineering, doi:10.1016/j.oceaneng.2007.08.004] that deals with unstiffened plates, the present paper (Part II) is focused on methods for the ultimate limit state assessment of stiffened plate structures under combined biaxial compression and lateral pressure actions. The object structure is the bottom part of an AFRAMAX-class hypothetical double-hull oil tanker structure designed by IACS common structural rules (CSR) method, that is the same ship studied in Part I. Three candidate methods, namely ANSYS nonlinear finite element method, DNV PULS method, and ALPS/ULSAP method, are employed for the present study. The results and insights developed from the present study are summarized in terms of ultimate strength characteristics of bottom-stiffened plate structures.