ABSTRACT
One of the most critical structural failures is the exceedance of the ship hull girder’s ultimate strength, which may result in hull breaking, and subsequent severe consequences, including loss of life and property as well as environmental damage in case of an oil spill. A cause for such loss of structural continuity can be triggered by a collision with another vessel. In addition, the ageing mechanisms of the hull structure could increase this risk. However, the majority of models for damage risk dedicated to collision and grounding accidents do not sufficiently account for the ageing effect. Furthermore, current risk models usually only consider oil spills due to perforation of the ship side, neglecting the ensuing risks of hull girder breaking. Therefore, in the presented work, we propose a simplified method to assess the probability of exceedance of the hull girder’s ultimate strength of a tanker ship, accounting both for the impact of corrosion degradation and the loss of the part of the midship cross-section due to collision with another vessel. A case study of a VLCC tanker ship is analysed to demonstrate the proposed methodology. Further ensuing consequences related to a hull girder failure are briefly discussed. Finally, key conclusions are given, and future research directions are outlined.
