ABSTRACT
In the last few years the structural reliability of ships in connection with further developing the standards and rules (Goal Based Standards of IMO und Common Structural Rules (CSR) of IACS) has been comprehensively discussed. Spectacular accidents like the breaking apart of the Prestige and the MSC Napoli were in part responsible for these discussions and developments. In the CSR and also in the rules of the GL (Germanischer Lloyd, 2008) an examination of the ultimate capacity of the hull girder by means of an analytical method (Smith’s method) has been introduced, which considers a progressive collapse of the structure mathematically. The result of this calculation is the ultimate capacity of the calculated hull girder cross section which is compared to the load of the stillwater bending moment and the wave bending moment, taking into consideration the partial safety factors.
