Granulate material for structural design: a concept to strengthen ship side structures

摘要

Society's attitude regarding environmental protection has changed severely in the last 50 years. The demand for safer transport of chemicals and fuels poses a new challenge to engineers. This thesis is dealing with the question on how to improve local parts of ship constructions to increase the safety of life at sea and to avoid environmental damages. Local parts that have to be strengthened are, on the one hand, constructions to protect tanks filled with highly explosive or flammable liquids like LNG, and on the other hand, they are selected parts of ship side structures. These parts can absorb energy in case of an explosion or a collision. The strengthening is achieved by filling void spaces with granulate material. To determine the granulate material, the following aspects were considered: environmental harmlessness, hydrolyse, and heat resistance, as well as less mass density. The choice of an eligible material that is not permanently fixed to the outer and inner shell enables inspections of the structure without restrictions, e.g., for renewal of class certificates. Another major advantage of this method is that the conventional side structure does not have to be modified. This will avoid unforeseeable structural damage in operational readiness. Nevertheless, it is also easy to refit on demand.