This paper presents a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art developments in health monitoring of marine structures. Monitoring the health of marine structures plays a key role in reducing the risk of structural failure. The authors establish the different sensors with their theoretical foundations and applications in order to determine the optimal position of the sensors on board. Once the data were collected, it was necessary to use for subsequent treatment; thus, the authors identified the different methodologies related to the treatment of data collected by the sensors. The authors provide a historical review of the location of different sensors depending on the type of ship and offshore platform. Finally, this review paper states the conclusions and future trends of this technology.

This paper presents the design and the experimental results of a new type of developable added bulbous bow that has been designated as a dihedral bow. This type of bow is based on polyhedral bows that are used in small vessels, whose origin is traced to the 1990s. The bow is designed with a set of developable surfaces that are designed following previous methodology on surface design that considers material properties and can contain boundary curves. Two dihedral bow designs and their towing tank tests are presented in this work. A displacement and a semi-displacement hull were tested in two different loading conditions and for different Froude numbers. An important reduction of the effective power (PE) of the ships with the dihedral bow was observed during the experiments. There is a reduction of about 20% for the displacement hull and about 16% for the semi-displacement. The design methodology for the dihedral bows is presented in this paper together with experimental results on power, sink and trim. Dihedral bows are a good option for efficient small ship design, as well as larger ships.

The aim of the work is to evaluate various designs in order to arrive at some guidelines for choosing a good standard design by means of a fatigue damage analysis in the connection between longitudinal stiffener and transverse web frame on container ship side-shell structure located in the upper wing torsional box. Design proposals and recommendations are developed, based on numerical and experimental analysis, which allow, from different structural configurations formed by combinations between cut-outs and collar plates, to establish more and less adequate structural designs in one of the ships with the greatest future projection. In the first phase, the cut-out without influence of the longitudinal stiffener is studied and the stress state and fatigue assessment are determined. In the second phase, the longitudinal stiffener is taken into account under the presence of the collar plate in the model and different geometrical alternatives (thickness, ducktail, overlap and radius of curvature) and their influence on the determination of stress and fatigue life are studied. From the different configurations, the most appropriate combination is established and structural solutions are proposed in order to improve the design.