Influence of initial distortion of 3 mm thin superstructure decks on hull girder response for fatigue assessment

• Effect of initial distortion of 3 mm decks on hull girder response is studied.
• Redistribution of forces from thin initially distorted decks to other decks happens.
• Redistribution of forces at deck level between plates and stiffeners also occurs.
• Global model behaves linearly even though geometrical nonlinearity is included.
• Panel loading for fatigue assessment can be defined from linear global FE analysis.

This paper investigates the influence of initial distortion of 3 mm thin superstructure decks on hull girder response and fatigue assessment. Part of the traditional superstructure of a prismatic passenger ship is replaced by thin decks with initial distortion amplitude of 0, 1 and 2 times the IACS limit value for thicker plates, i.e. 0, 6 and 12 mm. Both geometrically linear and nonlinear finite element (FE) analysis is used. For reference also traditional superstructure with 5 mm plate thickness is analyzed. Thin straight superstructure decks give 43% of weight reduction and carry approximately 30% less load than corresponding thick straight decks in traditional model. The load that is not carried by thin decks is divided between other traditional decks. The redistribution of forces also happens at the deck level between plates, stiffeners, girders and longitudinal bulkheads. The presence of initial distortion with the shape of one half wave between web frames and stiffeners causes an additional few percent-decrease in forces carried. The results and conclusions are similar for hogging and sagging loading conditions and differences between geometrically linear and nonlinear FE analysis are very small. This means time saving since the panel loading for fatigue assessment can be defined from geometrically linear hull girder response analysis without considering the initial distortions.