Fatigue Assessment of Very Large Container Ships Considering Springing Effect Based on Stochastic Approach

Evaluation of fatigue strength considering the springing effect of very large container ships is crucial in the design stage.In this study, we established a fatigue strength evaluation method considering a linear springing component in the frequency domain.Based on a three-dimensional global model, a fluid-structure interaction analysis was performed and the modal superposition method was applied to determine the hot spot stress at the hatch corner of very large container ships.Fatigue damage was directly estimated using the stress transfer function with a linear springing response.Furthermore, we proposed a new methodology to apply the springing effect to fatigue damage using hull girder loads.Subsequently, we estimated the fatigue damage contribution due to linear springing components along the ship length.Finally, we discussed the practical application of the proposed methods.