FATIGUE RELIABILITY OF THE SHIP HULL GIRDER ACCOUNTING FOR INSPECTIONAND REPAIR

A formulation is presented for the assessment of the reliability of a ship hull with respect to fatigue failure of the longitudinal members. The model allows for the existence of multiple cracks both in the sti ffeners and in the plating and it models the crack growth process. The effect of the cracks on the midship section modulus is modelled as a function of time and the resulting reliability is quantified. It is as sumed that the inspection method is perfect and detects all cracks lar ger than a detection limit, which in turn is method dependent. Detecte d cracks are subjected to a perfect repair being restored to the initi al crack size. The effect of hull maintenance is seen in the step chan ges of the reliability function. The sensitivity of the reliability es timates with respect to several parameters is also studied. (C) 1996 E lsevier Science Limited.