Bonded window panes in strength analysis of ship structures

ABSTRACT Large windows and window strips are essential in the design of passenger ships and megayachts. But in strength and vibration analyses of the ship structure, the bonded window panes are generally ignored. This is commonly justified with the assumption that the neglect of the window panes leads to conservative results. In this paper, this assumption is analysed. Therefore, the interaction of the window panes with the ship structure was investigated experimentally with a full-scale test model. In addition, methods were developed to include bonded window panes into global Finite Element ship models. Finally, the effect of window panes was examined numerically in two megayacht models. The investigations showed that the window panes can cause a local stress reduction as well as a considerable local stress increase in the ship structure. Consequently, it is not always conservative to neglect the window panes in the analysis models.