A STUDY ON COMMON SHIP STRUCTURAL FAILURES

The present article delineates the common structural failures during the operation of ships. Fatigue cracks, buckling of panels, indents and corrosion are the most common failures in ship structures during operation. Out of these the fatigue failures play very critical part in the ship structures. Fatigue cracks occur due to cycling loading, specially, action of waves on ship structures. Buckling of panels occur due to the in plane compressive stresses. Indents are the damages due to the lateral loads on the ship structures. Corrosion causes thickness reduction of the plates and sections, thereby increases the stress in the plates and sections in ship structures. A 3C method, which was formulated to address the common ship structural failure, was explained in this paper.