Composite Structures 62 (2003) 5966

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Reliability analysis of a ship hull in composite material

Nian-Zhong Chen, Hai-Hong Sun, C. Guedes Soares

Unit of Marine Technology and Engineering, Technical University of Lisbon, Instituto Superior T

ecnico, Av. Rovisco Pais,
1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal

Abstract
A simple and eective analytical method for ultimate longitudinal strength calculation and reliability analysis of a ships hull in
composite materials is presented. The ultimate strength formula of composite stiened panel is derived from composite column
theory. Deck and ship bottom structures are modelled as assemblies of stiened panels. Then, progressive collapse analysis is applied
to calculate the longitudinal ultimate strength of ship hull in composite materials. The response-surface method and the rst order
reliability method are combined to calculate the safety index and failure probability. Moreover, the sensitivity of each variable that
has eect on the reliability is discussed.
2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Composite; Stiened panel; Ultimate strength; Progressive collapse analysis; Reliability analysis; Response-surface method; Sensitivity
analysis

1. Introduction
In ships low weight is often desirable, but reduced
maintenance and corrosion resistance are also major
factors in design, which may lead to the selection of
composite materials for the ship hulls. Dierent types of
composite materials have been used [1,2] since high
performance composites used in yachts such as the ones
in the Americas Cup races to the less sophisticated
applications of glass reinforced bre-glass used in shing
boats [3] including the applications in naval ships [4].
Nowadays, more and more composite materials are
being applied to high-speed ships both catamarans and
monohulls.
Deck and ship bottom structures are assemblies of a
series of stiened panels. Therefore, knowing the failure
capacity of stiened panels is very important to assess
the ultimate strength of the ship hulls. Smith and Dow
[5,6] investigated the compressive strength of hat stiened FRP panels, both theoretically and experimentally.
They made recommendations regarding design procedures and safety factors on the design of FRP stiened
panels.
Stevens et al. [7] presented both theoretical and experimental results for the post-buckling behaviour of
*

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: guedess@mar.ist.utl.pt (C. Guedes Soares).

0263-8223/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0263-8223(03)00084-9

at, stiened, carbon bre composite panels under

compressive loading. Nonlinear nite element methods
were used to predict both the buckling and post-buckling response of the panels. A failure mechanism, involving stiener debonding, leading to eventual collapse
of the panel was identied and predicted using the nite
element method. These results may be useful to understand the behaviour of bre-glass panels under the same
conditions.
Dow [8] presents the results of large and small-scale
experimental investigations into the collapse performance of bre-reinforced composites for marine structures. The author presents the results of strength tests
carried out on stiened panels, a variety of structural
connections and deck edge connections.
Structural failure of ships hull girders due to extreme
bending moments is the most catastrophic failure. In
order to ensure safe design of a ships hull, it is necessary
to accurately evaluate the capacity of the hull girder
under extreme loads, which lead to ultimate collapse.
Caldwell [9] was the rst who tried to evaluate theoretically the ultimate hull girder strength of a ship
subjected to longitudinal bending. He introduced the
plastic collapse moment considering the inuence of
yielding of all structural members composing a ships
hull, subjected to a bending moment.
In Caldwells method, the ultimate hull girder
strength is calculated without considering the strength

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N.-Z. Chen et al. / Composite Structures 62 (2003) 5966

reduction in individual members after they have attained

their ultimate strength locally. This does not represent
the real collapse behaviour of the structural members,
but it is a conservative prediction. For this reason, it is
very important to take into consideration the strength
reduction (load shedding) of each structural member
when the collapse behaviour of a ships hull is simulated.
Some simplied methods have been developed to take
into account of the strength reduction of structural
members after their ultimate strength as well as the time
lag in collapse of individual members. Smith [10] proposed an approach in which the cross-section is divided
into small elements composed of a stiener and attached
plating, and the average stressaverage strain relationships of individual elements are derived before performing a progressive collapse analysis, which accounts
for the contributions of all elements.
While Smiths method was based on nite element
results for each stiened plate element, Gordo et al. [11]
modelled this behaviour with simple analytical formulas
and comparison with experimental work showed the
adequacy of the method [12].
The research work that has been reported here on the
ultimate strength of ship hull girders was conducted on
steel structures. A similar work has not yet been performed for structures of composite materials and this
will be pursued in the present paper.
Reliability analysis and design traditionally consider
ultimate limit state (ULS) to dene a failure event. For
an ULS, the resistance or capability is represented by
some measure of a structural strength, representing a
maximum value of the structural resistance. Failure is
said to occur when the predicted load or demand exceeds the predicted strength. The dominant strength
failure modes are usually some form of collapse or
ductile overload. Proper inclusion of a strength prediction in a structural reliability context requires the characterisation and consideration of all possible strength
uncertainties.
In the case of components in composite material,
Sutherland and Guedes Soares [13] have reviewed the
state of the art in probabilistic models of composites.
Ibnabdeljalil and Curtin [14] considered the strength of
composites and their size dependence with local load
sharing (LLS) using a Monte Carlo simulation model
based on the 3-D lattice Greens function technique. An
analytical formulation was derived and demonstrated,
mapping the reliability of a small composite structure
under LLS to a large structure whose strength is governed by its weakest bundle of bres. Koksharov [15]
used a characteristic volume with probabilistically
characterised levels of damage in developing critical
distortion energy for the fracture strength of a unidirectional composite. The approach allows inclusion of
composite structural reserve strength in reliability predictions for both static strength and fatigue.

Lin et al. [16] use stochastic FEA and second order

perturbation techniques to derive the strength of a
laminate under in-plane loads based on rst ply failure
using the TsaiWu criterion and buckling. The material
properties, bre angles and lamina thickness are treated
as random variables. SFEA and Monte Carlo simulation are used to develop failure probabilities using three
dierent strength distributions (normal, lognormal and
Weibull). Randomness in lamina thickness is shown to
have the greatest eect on the failure probability of
angle ply laminates.
Yushanov and Bogdanovich [17] gave state of the art
overviews in reliability prediction methods for composite structures. The authors presented an analytic
reliability prediction methodology and example applications for laminates under in-plane loads, using analysis of rare passages of a state vector (stress, strain or
displacement) stochastic process beyond the stochastic
limiting surface. The reliability of laminate is modelled
as a series system of lamina reliabilities.
Jeong and Shenoi [18] presented a method using a
simulation approach and Guedes Soares [19] has proposed dierent practical reliability approaches to assess
the reliability of composite structures.
In this paper a simple and eective analytical method
for longitudinal ultimate strength calculation and reliability analysis of composite ship hull in composite
materials is presented. Based on composite column
theory, ultimate strength formula of composite stiened
panel is derived. Then, progressive collapse analysis is
applied to calculate the longitudinal ultimate strength of
composite ship hull girder, and the response-surface
method is combined with a rst order reliability method
to calculate the safety index and failure probability, and
the sensitivity of each variable that has eect on the
reliability is discussed.

2. Ultimate longitudinal strength of composite stiened

panel
2.1. Theoretical analysis
A stiened panel of composite material is idealised as
a beam-column, where w0 is the initial deection of the
stiened panel, w is the plate deection at any point, P is
axial compressive load, l is the length of the stiened
panel, x is the coordinate in the direction of stiened
panel length, y is the coordinate in the direction perpendicular to x and e1 is eccentricity of load, as shown in
Fig. 1.
The initial deection of the stiened panel is assumed
to be
w0 w0 max sin

px
l

N.-Z. Chen et al. / Composite Structures 62 (2003) 5966

and substituting it into Eq. (5) yields:



2
3
p2 e1


w

0
max
8
P4
e1 w0 max
P 5
1

rmax
A
PE
s
s

Fig. 1. Composite stiened panel under axial compressive loads.

where w0 max is the amplitude of initial deection of

the stiened panel. The plate deection is given by
w w0 w1 , where w1 is the bending deection of the
stiened panel.
The dierential equation for the bending of composite beam-column is given by
d2 w1
Dv

P w0 w1 e1
dx2
where Dv is the exural stiness:

N
X
Dv
Ei0 A0i yi2 Ei0 Ii0

Ei0

where is the Youngs modulus of the element i of the

stiened panel, A0i is its cross-sectional area, Ii0 is its
moment of inertia and yi is the distance between the
centroid of the cross-section and the neutral axis of the
cross-sectional area of the stiened panel.
The boundary conditions are
x 0; l

w1 0

Substituting Eqs. (1) and (3) into Eq. (2), leads to






w0 max
px
e1
kl
kl
sin
cos
kx


w


cos
4
l
2
2
1
a
cos kl2
where
P
a ;
PE

p2 Dv
PE 2 ;
l

Therefore, the maximum stress rmax is given by

rmax

with
W

Dv
Ei0 y

where y is the vertical distance from the point of stiened panel to the neutral axis of the cross-section, A0 is
the cross-sectional area of the stiened panel, s
W =A0 .
Adopting the approximation:
PE
P
1
PE
PE
P

8
or simply
r2ULT lrULT x 0

where rULT is ultimate strength of the composite stiened panel and

PE
A0

x

l

10a
Xc srE
2

w0 max p 8e1

rE s e1 w0 max
2

w0 max p 8e1

Finally rULT is given by

p

l l2
4x
rULT
2

10b
10c

10d

2.2. Failure mode of the composite laminate stiened

panels
Theoretically, the primary models of overall failure
for a stiened panel subject to predominantly compressive loads may be categorized into the following
types [20]:

P
k
Dv
2

P Mmax

A0
W



P
w0 max PE
e1 p2 e1 P

0 1
A
s PE
P
s
8 s PE

Many composite materials including FRP behave like

brittle materials, showing no yield point. Therefore, the
ultimate strength is reached when the maximum elastic
stress is reached:


3
2
p2 e1


w

0
max
8
e

w
r
1
0
max
ULT
5 Xc
rULT 4 1

s
s
rE

rE

i1

61

1. Overall collapse after overall buckling of the plating

and stieners as a unit.
2. Plate-induced failure by collapse at the corners of
plating between stieners.
3. Plate-induced failure by collapse of a platestiener
combination at mid-span.
4. Stiener-induced failure by local buckling of stiener
web.
5. Stiener-induced failure by lateraltorsional buckling
of stiener.
Model 1 typically represents the collapse pattern
when the stieners are relatively weak. The panel behaves as an orthotropic plate. However, the stieners
are designed stronger than the plate in practice, so this
mode is commonly avoided.

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N.-Z. Chen et al. / Composite Structures 62 (2003) 5966

Model 2 can occur in some cases when the panel is

predominantly subjected to biaxial compressive loads.
Model 3 indicates a failure pattern in which the ultimate
strength is reached by column or beam-column type
collapse of the platestiener combination with the
eective (reduced) plating.
Model 4 represents a failure pattern in which the
panel collapse by local buckling of stiener web, while
Model 5 can occur when the ultimate strength is reached
by lateraltorsional buckling (or tripping) of stiener.
The stieners in composite ship, which are usually of
hat section, which are particularly eective in reducing the unsupported span of shell or deck panels and
eliminating the possibility of lateraltorsional instability
under lateral or compressive load. So the model 5 is not
usual to occur in composite ship structures.
In general, cross-stiened panels should be designed
such that interframe collapse occurs before gross panel
collapse because the latter involves a larger portion of
structure and is likely to be more catastrophic.
As a result, the collapse modes of the stiened panel
in composite under longitudinal compression are two
kinds: (1) Plate-induced failure by collapse of a plate
stiener combination at mid-span; (2) Stiener-induced
failure by local buckling of stiener web. In this mode,
the plate has already been buckling before the failure, so
its resistance will be reduced.
A reduction factor u [21] multiplied by the width of
panel b can be used to model this eect in a similar way
as is done with metal plates [22]. Ultimate strength of
composite stiened panel is the one whose ultimate
stress rULT is smaller than the other in the two failure
modes.

Table 2
The material properties of composite stiened panel
Youngs modulus E (MPa)
Tensile strength Xt (MPa)
Compressive strength Xc (MPa)

Wing

Web

Panel

19.5
241
210

15.0
238
204

15.0
238
204

error 3.62% between the calculated result and experimental results is less than 5%.

3. Ultimate longitudinal strength of a composite ship

The ultimate longitudinal strength of the hull girder
is the value of the bending moment Mu at which the
exural stiness of the hull girder becomes zero. This
occurs when sucient panels within a particular segment of hull girder (the critical segment) have themselves undergone collapse. During the overall collapse
the various panels are all at dierent stages of member
collapse, and within each member the principal load
eect is the elongation or shortening which the hull
girder bending moment imposes as a result of its curvature U. Because the collapse is constrained to occur
between frames, the cross-section of the critical segment remains plane and the normal strain e due to hull
girder exure varies linearly across the segment, in
accordance with the EulerNavier beam bending theory. That is
e ZU

11

where Z is the distance from instantaneous elastic neutral axis of the cross-section. According to the elastic
plastic bending theory, the equilibrium condition of
cross-section of the ship hull girder is
X
ri Ai 0
12
X
ri Ai Zi M
13

2.3. Example
Consider a composite stiened panel, with an initial
deection of w0 0:00013a, where a is the length of
composite stiened plate. The geometric and material
properties of the composite stiened panel are shown in
Tables 1 and 2, and the geometry of the composite
stiened panel under longitudinal compression are
shown in Fig. 2.
The calculated ultimate strength of the stiened
plates is 29.428 MPa, while the experimental result of
the ultimate strength of the stiened plates is 28.4 MPa
[1]. This shows that the method considered in this paper
is very accurate to calculate the ultimate strength of the
stiened panel in composite materials since the relative

where Ai , ri and Zi represent the cross-sectional area of

the ith element, its average strain of the cross-section
and the ordinate of its centroid of the cross-section respectively, and M represents the bending moment on the
cross-section of ship hull girder.
The y-coordinate of the instantaneous elastic neutral
axis of the cross-section of the composite ship hull girder
Z can be derived from Eq. (4):
PN
Ei Ai Zi
Z Pi1
14
N
i1 Ei Ai

Table 1
The geometric properties of composite stiened panel
Name

b2

b3

b4

bF

t1 , t2

t3

t4

Size (mm)

3060

640

108

92

123

54

12.7

8.6

132

N.-Z. Chen et al. / Composite Structures 62 (2003) 5966

63

Fig. 2. The geometry and of the composite stiened panel under longitudinal compression.

where Ei is the Youngs modulus of the cross-section of

the ith element.
Starting from ri and ei , one can determine Z from Eq.
(14) and then M from Eq. (13) after each stiened panel
collapse. Assuming that after each stiened panel has
collapsed it has no residual strength, then it sheds its
entire load onto the other stiened panels. Step by step,
Mu will be nally attained.

4. Reliability analysis
The limit state function of the longitudinal ultimate
strength of a composite ship includes the model errors in
predicting the ultimate longitudinal strength of the ship
hull girder Cu , Youngs modulus of the material E, the
initial deection of each stiened panel w0 , the discounting factor of the plates u, the compressive strength
of material Xc , the model errors in predicting the longitudinal bending Cg and the longitudinal bending Mg .
The limit state function can be described as follows:
g Cu Mu E; w0 ; u; Xc
Cg Mg

15

where it can be seen that the ultimate longitudinal

strength of the ship hull girder Mu is a function of E, w0 ,
u, Xc .
The response-surface method is introduced since the
limit state function is complicated, and is not described
by a simple analytical method. To construct a response
surface [23] a polynomial type function including
squared terms to replace the original implicit limit state
function is adopted:
gp

n
X
i1

qi X i

n
X

ri Xi2

16

i1

where p, qi and ri represent the coecients responding to

Xi which is the ith variable.
Suppose an initial safety index b0 , and consider a
series of E, w0 , u, Xc , Cg , Cu and Mg . A series of Mu will
be obtained and then with the substitution of Mu , Cg and
Mg to Eq. (15), a series of corresponding g will be obtained. An initial polynomial limit state function will be

obtained by a linear regression method according to the

form of Eq. (16).
Then, the safety index b1 of the initial polynomial
limit state function will be obtained with a rst order
reliability method. If the absolute value between b0 and
b1 is greater than a very small positive value f, it is
necessary to redesign a series of test points. In this way,
a polynomial limit state function in the form of Eq. (16)
will be obtained until the absolute value between the two
adjacent safety indexes is less than f. The failure probability Pf and safety index b of the ultimate longitudinal
strength of ship hull will be obtained nally.
Generally speaking, sensitivity analysis is an important part of structural reliability assessments. One benet is the identication of the model parameters that
have the most eect on the estimated reliability or safety
index. The other benet is being able to identify those
parameters that can be taken as xed values and need
not be considered as random variables in reliability
models.
If the limit state function is gX1 ; X2 ; . . . ; Xn 0, an
importance factor is dened by Ii :








og 


r
Xi



oXi P 


17
Ii  "
#

2 1=2 
 P


og 


n


rX
i1


oXi P  i
where P  is the design point, Xi represents the ith variable, rXi is the standard deviation of Xi . The greater
importance factor Ii is, the more important Xi is.
The sensitivity factor is dened by gi :


 ob


18
rXi 
gi 
orXi
where b is safety index. If a variable has a relatively large
gi it must be treated in reliability analysis as a random
variable. On the contrary, a variable having a very small
gi can be regarded as a xed variable in reliability
analysis.

64

N.-Z. Chen et al. / Composite Structures 62 (2003) 5966

5. Example application
Consider a high-speed ship built of bre-reinforced
plastic. Its speed is 30 knots, it is longitudinally framed
structure, and the mid-ship cross-section is shown in
Fig. 3, length overall is 50 m, length of waterline is 46 m,
breadth moulded is 9 m, depth moulded is 6 m, designed

Fig. 3. The mid-ship cross-section.

draught is 2.3 m, load draught is 2.35 m, load displacement is 400 t. The thickness of the plates are 4.1
mm at deck and side, and 7.2 mm at the bilge. The geometry of the stiened panel in the mid-ship cross-section is shown in Fig. 2. The geometry of the stiened
panels of deck and side are shown in Table 3, and Table
4 shows the characteristics of the stiened panel of the
bilge. The dimensions a, b2 , b3 , b4 , bF , t1 , t2 , t3 , t4 and d
are shown in Fig. 2.
The ship is made of a composite material with
Youngs modulus E1 E2 E 1:8  1010 N/m2 , shear
modulus G 2:7  1010 N/m2 , Poissons ratio l 0:26,
the Youngs modulus along the thickness of plate
Et E=10, the shear module along the thickness of plate
Gt G=10, the Poissons ratio along the thickness of
plate lt 0:1. The ultimate tensile strength of the material is Xt 2:08  108 N/m2 , and the ultimate compressive strength of the material Xc 1:91  108 N/m2 .
The characteristics of the seven random variables Cu ,
E, w0 , u, Xc , Cg and Mg are shown in Table 5.
The failure probability and safety index of the highspeed ships failure probability and safety index in sagging and hogging is shown in Table 6, where Pf is the
failure probability, b is the safety index.

Table 3
The geometry of the stiened panel of deck and side
Name

b2

b3

b4

bF

t1 , t2

t3

t4

Size (mm)

1000

62

50

57.3

18

4.1

3.5

2.1

60

Table 4
The geometry of the stiened panel of the bilge
Name

b2

b3

b4

bF

t1 , t2

t3

t4

Size (mm)

1000

124

100

84.8

38

7.2

3.1

90

Table 5
Characteristics of random variable
Number

Name

Mean

Coecient of variation

Distribution

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Cu
E
w0
u
Xc
Cg
Mg (sagging)
Mg (hogging)

1
1.8  1010 N/m2
0.0001 m
0.6
1.91  108 N/m2
1
1.3534  107 N m
1.998  107 N m

0.1
0.06
0.05
0.15
0.06
0.1
0.25
0.25

Normal distribution
Normal distribution
Normal distribution
Normal distribution
Normal distribution
Normal distribution
Extreme I distribution
Extreme I distribution

Table 6
Failure probability and safety index
Failure mode
Sagging
Hogging

Decks compressive failure

Bilges compressive failure

Pf

4

6.0963  10
1.3595  10
9

3.2343
5.9477

N.-Z. Chen et al. / Composite Structures 62 (2003) 5966

65

Table 7
Importance factor of each variable
Sagging
Hogging

Cu

w0

Xc

Cg

Mg

0.7189
0.8279

0.3547
0.2668

0.0006
0.0019

0.3588
0.3478

0.0011
0.0123

0.4782
0.3496

2.9262  10
6
1.5165  10
6

Table 8
Sensitivity factor of each variable
Sagging
Hogging

Cu

w0

Xc

Cg

Mg

1.67
4.23

0.408
0.42

0
0

0.405
0.645

0
0.006

0.74
0.73

0
0

The importance factor of each variable is shown in

Table 7, which shows that the importance factor of Cu is
the maximum, second is the importance factor of Cg ,
latter are the importance factors of u, E, Xc , w0 , while
the importance factor of Mg almost equals zero.
The importance factor of Cu being very high indicates
that Cu has a great eect on the safety index. After introducing Cg , the importance factor of Mg becomes almost equal to zero.
Both the discounting factor of plate u and Youngs
modulus of the material E have also a great eect on
safety index.
The sensitivity factor of every variable is shown in
Table 8, which indicates that the sensitivity factor of Cu
is the maximum, the sensitivity factors of Cg , u, E are
fairly great, while the sensitivity factor of Xc , w0 , Mg are
almost equal zero. This means that Cu , Cg , u, E must be
dealt with as stochastic variables and Xc , w0 , Mg could be
regarded as xed variables.

(3) The model errors in predicting the ultimate longitudinal strength of the ship hull girder Cu , the model
errors in predicting of the longitudinal bending Cg ,
the reduction factor of plate u and Youngs modulus of the material E must be dealt with as stochastic variables, while the compressive strength of
material Xc , the initial deection of each stiened
panel w0 and the longitudinal bending Mg could
be regarded as deterministic variables in reliability
analysis.

Acknowledgement
~o
The second author has been nanced by Fundaca
para a Ci^encia e a Tecnologia under the contract SFRH/
BPD/5519/2001.

References
6. Conclusion
In this paper, a simple and eective method is proposed for longitudinal ultimate strength calculation and
reliability analysis of a ship hull in composite materials.
The method provides a relatively simple, quick and
reasonably accurate solution for the collapse of composite stiened panels, longitudinal ultimate strength
and reliability analysis of ship hull in composite materials. In addition, after performing a reliability analysis
for a high-speed ship in composite materials, it was
concluded that
(1) It is most important to estimate precisely the ultimate longitudinal strength of composite ship hull
since the model errors in predicting the ultimate longitudinal strength of the ship hull girder Cu has a
great eect on the safety index.
(2) Because both the reduction factor of plate u and
Youngs modulus of the material E have a great effect on safety index, it is also very important to estimate u and get the accurate statistical data of E.

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