Simplified analytical method for evaluating web girder crushing during ship collision and grounding

• A simplified analytical method is presented to examine the crushing resistance of web girders subjected to in-plane loads.
• A new theoretical model describes the progressive plastic deformation behaviour of web girders.
• New formulae to evaluate this crushing force are proposed on the basis of a new folding deformation mode.
• They are validated with experimental results of web girder found in literature and actual numerical simulations.
• These formulae are also validated with drop weight impact test described in the paper.

The paper presents a simplified analytical method to examine the crushing resistance of web girders subjected to local static or dynamic in-plane loads. A new theoretical model, inspired by existing simplified approaches, is developed to describe the progressive plastic deformation behaviour of web girders. It is of considerable practical importance to estimate the extent of structural deformation within ship web girders during collision and grounding accidents. In this paper, new formulae to evaluate this crushing force are proposed on the basis of a new folding deformation mode. The folding deformation of web girders is divided into two parts, plastic deformation and elastic buckling zones, which are not taken into account for in the existing models. Thus, the proposed formulae can well express the crushing deformation behaviour of the first and subsequent folds. They are validated with experimental results of web girder found in literature and actual numerical simulations performed by the explicit LS-DYNA finite element solver. The elastic buckling zone, which absorbs almost zero energy, is captured and confirmed by the numerical results. In addition, the analytical method derives expressions to estimate the average strain rate of the web girders during the impact process and evaluates the material strain rate sensitivity with the Cowper-Symonds constitutive model. These adopted formulae, validated with an existing drop weight impact test, can well capture the dynamic effect of web girders.