Ultimate strength assessment of a tanker hull based on experimentally developed master curves

A geometrically similar scaling was made from small-scale specimen to full-scale stiffened panels and then their collapse behaviour is investigated. It is considered that the stiffened panel compressive ultimate strength test was designed according to geometrical scaling laws so that the output of the test could be used as representative of the stiffened panels of the compressive zone of a tanker hull subjected to vertical bending moment. The ultimate strength of a tanker hull is analysed by a FE analysis using the experimentally developed master stress-strain curves which are obtained by the beam tension test and the compressive test of the stiffened panel, and are then compared with the result achieved by the progressive collapse method. © 2013 Harbin Engineering University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.