Utilization of high-strength steel for weight reduction of large electric ships

Report, 2025

The ELÄTTRA project is a follow-up project of the Lighthouse project Electric Light, in which an electric-driven RoPax was conceptualized and designed. The Electric Light project concluded that it is crucial to construct electric ships with lightweight and fire-safe materials, which implies that extra high-strength steels are more suitable than aluminum and composite materials for this type of ship structure. Currently, extra high-strength steels are only recommended for building highly specialized applications onboard ships according to class rules. The ELÄTTRA project investigated the potential of re-designing ship structures and sub-structures using extra high-strength steels. The main goal is to develop a practical engineering approach for structural design/optimization of deck structures and the effects on weight reduction. Examples of deck structures of Ro-Ro ships have been selected as the representative structural components to demonstrate the proposed methodology.