A framework for quantifying fatigue deterioration of ship structures under changing climate conditions

ABSTRACT

The randomness of sea conditions and loading sequences are among the key contributing factors that affect our ability to accurately predict the fatigue crack growth in ships. Climate change may alter the long-term characteristics of these factors along the service life of existing or newly constructed ships. This paper presents a framework for quantifying the impact of climate change on crack propagation in ship hulls. A probabilistic fatigue crack propagation approach is developed to account for uncertainties associated with material properties and loading conditions; specifically, those affected by climate change. Global Climate Models (GCMs) are used to quantify the long-term effects of climate change on the sea conditions and the resulting ship loading time histories. The proposed approach is applied to a tanker ship operating within predefined routes in the Atlantic Ocean. The results show that the effect of climate change on the crack propagation depends on the navigation route.

KEYWORDS:

• Fatigue
• crack propagation
• climate change
• global climate models
• probability of failure
• variable amplitude loading

Acknowledgments

The opinions and conclusions presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsoring organisations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Office of Naval Research: [Grant Number N00014-18-1-2443].