Modified incremental-iterative method for bulk carriers under alternate hold loading conditions

A modified incremental-iterative method for bulk carriers under alternate hold loading condition is outlined, focusing on the assessment of the local stress field, due to double bottom bending by the orthotropic plate theory, and the development of a modified strain field of double bottom structures, after first failure of bottom stiffeners occurs. Particularly, the ISSC bulk carrier is assumed as reference ship and a comparative analysis with the FE results available in literature is performed to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Subsequently, the influence of bottom strengthening and corrosion wastage on hull girder hogging capacity, under pure bending and alternate hold loading conditions, is investigated. Current results, obtained by a dedicated code developed in Matlab, are fully discussed to prove the effectiveness of the proposed method for practical design purposes.