Examination of Effect of Lateral Loads on the Hull Girder Ultimate Strength of Large Container Ships

It is known that the hull girder ultimate strength with consideration of lateral loads such as bottom sea pressures and/or cargo loads generally decreases than that without consideration of the lateral loads (i.e. the effect of lateral loads). In this study a series of elasto-plastic analyses of three cargo holds models, which can reproduce the collapse behavior of the hold structures subjected to both vertical bending moment and lateral loads such as bottom sea pressures, container cargo loads etc., were carried out on a number of container ships with various sizes, and the hull girder ultimate strength obtained through the analyses were comparatively examined focusing on the effect of the lateral loads. As results of the examination, it has been concluded that local strength of the double bottom structure against the lateral loads is closely related to the hull girder ultimate strength in the case of container ships, the effect of the lateral loads on the hull girder ultimate strength varies among container ships due to the difference of construction of the double bottom structure and it is important to assess the hull girder ultimate strength explicitly taking into consideration the effect of the lateral loads for large container ships such as Post-Panamax sizes.