LONGITUDINAL STRENGTH OF LARGE-SCALED WOODEN SHIPS

Wooden ships up to about 55m in length have been designed and built with hulls of double skin planking. This design calls for a layer of longitudinal planking to be crossed at an angle of 45 degrees by a layer of diagonal planking. Based on the successful operation of these ships, large-scaled wooden ships of about 70m in length are under consideration for construction with triple skin planking. This would consist of an outer layer of longitudinal planking and an inner skin of double layers of diagonal planking at angles of plus or minus 45 degrees, respectively, to the longitudinal planks. The experiments and theoretical investigations carried out to establish design formulas for the longitudinal bending and shear strength of wooden hulls with the triple skin planking are described.