The aim of this study is to investigate the crashworthiness characteristics of steel-plated structures subject to low temperatures that are equivalent to the Arctic environment. Structural crashworthiness with regard to crushing and fracture is a key element in the strength performance assessment of ship collisions in the Arctic, which provides the primary motivation for the study. This article is a sequel to the authors’ previous paper [1]. In contrast to the previous paper, which dealt with test structures made of American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) A500-type carbon steel with the wall slenderness coefficient (b/t) of 37.5, the present paper considers grade A steel with the wall slenderness coefficient (b/t) of 25. Crushing tests are undertaken on square tubes subject to a quasi-static crushing load at both room and low temperatures. The effect of low temperatures on the material properties is examined on the basis of tensile coupon test results. The crushing behavior of the square tubes in this test is compared with LS-DYNA computations. It is found that low temperatures have a significant effect on the crashworthiness of steel-plated structures in terms of mean crushing loads and brittle fracture. The use of grade A steel for ships and offshore structures in an Arctic environment is not relevant. The modeling techniques for the structural crashworthiness analysis presented in this paper are found to be pertinent by comparison with experimental results and nonlinear finite element method computations. It is suggested that the collision-accidental limit state design of ships intended to operate in the Arctic region be carried out by taking the effect of low temperatures into account.
Exploring the potential influence of climate change and particulate organic carbon scenarios on the fate of neutral organic contaminants in the Arctic environment
