Crashworthiness assessment of double-hull tanker structures under ship grounding actions

Abstract

Ship grounding is considered as a serious maritime accident which highly contributes to environmental pollution. This impact phenomenon attracts audiences to be studied and assessed since in an instantaneous moment, oil or waste from the damaged bottom tank can spill and contaminate wide water territory. In this study, grounding scenario is modelled as hard grounding where a rock geometry is chosen as representative of oceanic obstruction. The contribution of several main parameters, such as target component and oceanic obstruction are evaluated. The method is to apply a virtual experiment by nonlinear finite element (FE) method to conduct a simulation. A chemical tanker is taken as representative of a marine structure which is subjected to impact load on its bottom structure during interaction with the obstruction. The results indicate that the space between girders provides less resistance in the crushing process. The internal energy in this work is presented to estimate the strength capability of the impacted component, which is followed by the deformation pattern on the lower part of the bottom structure. Finally, the effect of the obstruction on failure sequences in grounding is summarised.