Benchmark study on the assessment of ship damage conditions during stranding

This study introduces a generalised model for the shape of the sea floor, which is relevant for ships during stranding. The sea floor is parameterised by a mathematical expression as a quadratic surface, namely, an elliptical paraboloid. Two scenarios were considered in this study using the LS-DYNA code, implemented with the user-defined Rice-Tracey-Cockcroft-Latham (RTCL) material routine. A simple procedure to estimate the global collapse load of the grillage of the bottom structure based on plastic analysis is presented. The solution obtained by this simplified procedure also illustrates a promising scheme that can be applied for rapid assessment of the ship hull in stranding analysis. The ultimate goal of the study is to understand the behaviour of the ship bottom structure and to incorporate the developed procedure into a decision support tool, which is intended to facilitate assessment of critical situations.