ABSTRACT
Failures in ship structures, including some total losses, continue to occur worldwide, in spite of continuous ongoing efforts to prevent them. Such failures can have enormous costs associated with them, including lost lives in some cases. One of the possible causes of such structural casualties is thought to be the inability of aging ships to withstand rough seas and weather, because the ship’s structural safety decreases during later life, although it is quite adequate at the design stage and perhaps up to 15 years beyond. Corrosion and fatigue-related problems are considered to be the two most important factors potentially leading to such age-related structural degradation of ships and, of course, of many other types of steel structures. Local dent damage sometimes takes place in particular locations of certain merchant ships, e.g., inner bottom plates of bulk carriers.
