ABSTRACT
The experiment, nonlinear finite element method and the Smith incremental-iterative method have been adopted to study the ultimate strength of a box-girder under pure bending. The box girder is a scaled model of a ship hull with large-span deck. The results obtained by three methods shows that the finite element method produces an ultimate bending moment slightly (1.8%) larger than the experimental one, while the Smith method gives a smaller (7.5%) one as compared to experiment. In addition, based on the Smith method, the collapse behavior of the cross section is analyzed to provide more detailed information for the collapse process. The failure stresses of a typical component, the deck girder located in the middle of target deck area, are obtained from experiment and Smith method, and are compared, showing good agreement. The research work of this paper shows that Smith method has been applied successfully on large-span deck structures in order to provider collapse sequence and identify the weakest local component in ship design process.
