Life-cycle fatigue reliability of ship structures: A proposed system

Fatigue damage of structural details in essence may be attributed to the co nsequences of the traditional approach of securing the reliability of struc tures when the design and maintenance are provided by different groups of e xperts with different principles and different professional training. Progr ess may be achieved when the whole life-cycle reliability of a structure is provided uniformly in the design and service cycles. A series of actions a nd appropriate fatigue models composing an automated system to aid in the d esign and maintenance of ship structures is proposed. Considering the exist ing and feasible actions, attention is focused on the fatigue design and po st-fabrication assessment of fatigue properties at critical locations.