Comparative Study on Fatigue Damage Assessment of a Structure Member in a Bulk Carrier Using Various Environmental Conditions

Abstract

Specific design life could be identified by using fatigue damage assessment in the structure engineering field as well as in the maritime sector. Fatigue assessment is one of the assessments to be conducted during review of ship structure design. Fatigue assessment of ship structural member is mainly conducted based on specific environmental condition. In general, specific environmental condition, which is provided by Classification Society rules, is a long term sea-state data of North Atlantic Ocean. The wave scatter diagram presents the tabulation of a long term data of sea state history in the specific ocean. Therefore, a realistic encounter of wave scatter diagram is essential to simulate the variation of wave loadings applied on the ship structure in determination of fatigue design life. Since the application of North Atlantic ocean environmental condition is commonly used by major Classification societies, this condition might give the substantial deterioration on the fatigue design life of the ship that specially operate only in specific ocean area, i.e. South East Asia area. In this work, the wave scatter diagram of various environmental conditions is chosen and the statistical characteristic is compared. The wave load sequence that is used on the fatigue damage assessment are generated by using the concept of storm model, so that the changing nature of sea state could be emulated as in real ocean. Fatigue damage of a structure member of 220 meter Bulk Carriers is calculated based on various environmental conditions.