Experimental Study On Brittle Crack Propagation Behavior With Large Scale Structural Component Model Tests - Brittle Crack Arrest Design For Large Container Ships -5 -

In recent years, sizes of container ships have been getting larger and larger. The container ships have large hatch openings in the Strength deck by demand of loading / unloading container cargoes. Due to the large cargo opening, thicker steel plates are applied to the longitudinal strength members in the strength deck structures, such as Hatch side coaming, Strength deck, Sheer strake and Uppermost strake of Longitudinal bulkhead. The thickness of these structural members has become thicker and thicker with the trend of enlargement of the container ships, and nowadays extremely thick steel plates over 50mm (sometimes 70mm, 80mm) become to be used.