Surface Ship Structures Coursework – Some Pointers

A good starting point is to have done the Grillage Tutorials. I would also recommend reading
Chapters 6 and 7 of Chalmers (e-copy available on Moodle), though note that Chalmers is a design
manual and so I am not expecting you to go to the same extent that he does.

Suggested steps:

1. Idealise the structure – by that I mean convert it into straight lines (see Chalmers) [NB: you
will need to use the midship area coefficient Cm to calculate the length of the inner bottom
– I will leave that to you to figure out how ]

2. You need to calculate the position of the neutral axis (y), and the second moment of area
(I). You will have to do this with an unknown effective thickness, te, which you can solve by
determining the minimum section moduli (since Z=I/y) for the deck and keel in the hog and
sag conditions (you are given the hog and sag BMs); you should also check the limiting
section moduli is not due to weld fatigue (See Lecture 13 Slides 47-49.) [NB: calculating the
second moment of area of a sloping element may take you some time to figure out,
therefore I’m being generous so the formula I used is at the bottom of this note (but please
feel free to do it your own way if you prefer).

3. Once you have determined your thickness distribution around the section, you will then
need to design the grillages for the strength deck, bottom, side shell and 2 deck.

4. You then need to check that your structure will not fail in the various failure modes. I would
expect to see:

 Plate buckling between stiffeners (especially deck and bottom)

 Interframe flexural buckling (i.e. compressive strength factor calculation) (especially
deck and bottom)
 Design Shear Stress (from the given Shear Force) – particularly relevant for side shell as
maximum shear stress occurs in the side shell at the NA
 Plate shear buckling (especially sideshell)
 Panel shear buckling (especially sideshell) - [a panel is the plating and longitudinal
stiffeners between transverse frames]
 Stiffener tripping

5. Datasheets: G7, G11, G17, G21, G23 might be helpful in addition to the Stiffener Data Book.

6. Finally, you do not have enough information to calculate a full structural weight estimate,
but you do have enough to determine an estimate of the structural weight per metre.
Please calculate and present your weight per metre.

Mark Selfridge
Nov 15
Reference: Roark’s Formulas for Stress and Strain, 7th edition, pg 800 (Young and Budynas),
but have to make some assumptions i.e. Ixy = Ix’y’= 0 therefore the Roark equation reduces
to:

𝑏ℎ 2
𝐼𝑥𝑥 = 𝐼𝑜𝑤𝑛 = (ℎ 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜃 2 + 𝑏 2 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃 2 )
12

Where: b=element length, h=element width (thickness) and θ is the angle of rotation from
the x-axis (horizontal plane). Rather than putting in an angle, we know
cosθ=adjacent/hypotenuse and that sinθ=opposite/hypotenuse (where the hypotenuse is
simply the element length in both cases) so we simply replace the cos and sin parts of the
equation with the relevant adjacent or opposite divided by the element length. So, this is
the equation that I ‘hardwired’ into my spreadsheet:

𝑙𝑡 3 𝑎𝑑𝑗𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 2 𝑡𝑙 3 𝑜𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑒 2
𝐼𝑥𝑥 = 𝐼𝑜𝑤𝑛 = [ ] + [ ]
12 ℎ𝑦𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑢𝑠𝑒 12 ℎ𝑦𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑢𝑠𝑒

Need to be careful to ensure the correct values of length, thickness, adjacent, opposite and
hypotenuse are being used in the formula for each inclined element that you have in your
midship section.

However, Iown is only part way there. We need to determine the second moment of area
about the NA, therefore we need to use the Parallel Axis Theorem which states that:

𝐼𝑁𝐴 = 𝐼𝑜𝑤𝑛 + 𝐴𝑟𝑒𝑎 . 𝑦 2

Where ‘y’ is the distance from the element’s centroid to the neutral axis of the midship
section.