Reliable finite element analysis of ship structural components

Abstract

Reliable and accurate determination of the static and dynamic response quantities is of considerable importance for economical and safe design of ship hull structures and offshore platforms. The objective of this paper is to present efficient methodologies that can be employed to obtain reliable finite element solutions for static and dynamic analysis of ship structural components. An a posteriori error estimator and h-adaptive refinement strategy is proposed for static and dynamic analysis of stiffened plate/shell panels. The equal subdivision or bisection method is made use of and local refinements are carried out only in the elements requiring refinements. An adaptive time-stepping scheme is proposed for transient dynamic analysis of stiffened plate/shell panels based on the time error estimates. Numerical studies on the static and dynamic analysis of ship hull structural components have been conducted to demonstrate the performance of the error estimator and the adaptive refinement strategy. It is observed that the proposed adaptive strategy in association with the error estimator is helpful in arriving at optimal mesh and time steps for the specified accuracy. It is recommended that the proposed methodologies can be used in obtaining reliable finite element solutions for design of ship structural components subjected to static and dynamic loads.