An Investigation of Ultimate Strength for VLOC Stiffened Panel Structures

Ultimate strength of ship and offshore structures is a very important issue that has drawn considerable attention from researchers, especially in the field of structural analysis applied to ship offshore, aircrafts, and base landings, etc. Finite Element Method (FEM) has been applied and developed to solve the complicated problem accurately. Particularly, with the help of aid tool and software, as well as Nonlinear Finite Element Method (NFEM), the ultimate strength of large model is improved significantly and accurately. The aim of this paper is to investigate the ultimate stiffened panel strength in the cargo hold areas for a very larger ore carrier built in China. The stiffened panel in the bottom, side and deck structures is a structural member which basically plays an important role in construction of ship and offshore.