ABSTRACT
Since the use of sandwich panels provides structural weight savings, it is expected that the ship’s payload would increase compared to the conventional solution. Besides economic benefit of a lighter and more profitable ship, less fuel consumption might contribute to additional savings and also reduce pollution caused by emissions of exhaust gases. Moreover, shipbuilding time of
1 INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, with the increase in energy prices and the economic crisis, one of the main goals in shipbuilding is to reduce the costs of ship production and exploitation. Furthermore, the interest for lightweight structures such as modular sandwich panels is continuously growing. These panels weight less than conventional stiffened panel structures while maintaining the same load-carrying capacity. In addition to more favourable strength-to-weight ratio, building time and costs of sandwich panels are reduced with respect to the conventional structures (Kujala & Klanac 2005, Kortenoever et al. 2008, Romanoff & Klanac 2008, Romanoff et al. 2011, Kolsters & Zenkert 2002, Romanoff et al. 2009).
