Experimental and numerical investigation of bulb impact with a ship side-shell structure

Journal article, 2009

The finite element (FE) method is suitable as a numerical tool in the numerical analysis of, for example, ship collision scenarios. It is feasible to simulate and compare different collision scenarios by parameter variations. The objective with this investigation was to establish a reliable and robust FE modeling procedure for ship-ship collision simulations, using the commercial FE software Abaqus/Explicit, by means of parameter sensitivity and experimental analyses. Four types of experiments are presented that have supported the development of the FE models and simulations with sufficient information for representation of material characteristics and for validation of models: (i) uniaxial tensile tests, (ii) friction tests, (iii) bulb impact with a steel-sheet test and, finally (iv) a bulb impact with a side-shell ship structure. The outcome of the parameter study after calibration against test results was two validated FE models: one of the bulb-sheet test and one of the bulb-structure test.