Standard structural assessments of ship hulls include the evaluation of the elastic structural response. Elastic analysis neglects extreme and unpredicted loadings, which can produce catastrophic outcomes, such as the loss of the ship’s ultimate strength. Moreover, hull elements are considered unaffected by age-related degradation. Therefore, this study models and quantifies the effect of corrosion-induced structural degradation on the ultimate strength of a high-tensile-steel (HTS) cargo ship using progressive collapse and nonlinear finite element methods. Uniform and pitting corrosion are modeled through selected scenarios, which hull elements might encounter during exploitation, producing a total of 148 calculation models. The findings show that corrosion-induced degradation can significantly decrease the ultimate strength of the hull (up to 30% for the most severe scenarios assessed). Furthermore, ultimate strength decreases almost proportionally to the amount of wastage considered. It was found that stiffener corrosion has a significant effect on the total ultimate strength. This study’s aim is to emphasize the vast importance of including ultimate strength along with ageing effects in industry-standard structural assessments of large HTS ship structures, designed to last for several decades whilst exposed to excessive and unpredicted bending moments.

The research represents the ongoing investigation of the welded joints behavior made of low-carbon low-alloyed steel in the presence of different multiple defects. Following the initial experimental and numerical analyses performed on low-grade steel, a set of experiments were performed with specimens made of steel EN 1.0044 (commercial designation S275JR), along with development of new numerical models. Four combinations were made, including defects like undercuts, excess weld metal, misalignment, weld face sagging and incomplete root penetration, considering that these defects are often encountered in practice, and can appear simultaneously. The finite element method (FEM) was used to simulate the experiments. Tensile properties of the HAZ and weld metal were calculated using strain measurements by the digital image correlation (DIC) method. The finite element method (FEM) results were in good agreement with the experimental ones.

Reliable and resilient constructions are basic for ensuring the safety of various structures. The superalloys are used as constructive materials due to their superb mechanical properties and endurance. However, even these materials can have certain areas where the stress concentration is higher than expected, such as drilling holes, which are common in various structures that need additional enhancement. Surface laser modifications of the areas surrounding the holes drilled in Nimonic 263 sheets are done by pulsed picosecond and nanosecond Nd:YAG laser irradiations with pulse durations of 170 ps and ≤8 ns, respectively. Following the laser surface treatment, the effectiveness of the enhancement was analyzed by the microhardness test and the deformation test. The results show that the deformation and stress values are decreased by 25−40 percent, showing the improvement in the resilience to deformation. The Vickers microhardness test results indicate an improvement in the Nimonic 263 microhardness. The dimensions of the microcracks are higher for the untreated material in comparison to the laser-treated material.

Piezoelectric actuators are widely used in structural systems for active vibration control with the aim to enhance the performance of systems. The developed system of active vibration control consists of active structure, controller and high voltage amplifier. In this paper, the composite beam is host structure for sensor platform (strain gages) and actuator platform (dual layer PZT piezoelectric actuator). In order to improve the dynamic characteristics of active system, the coefficients of PID controller are changed. The effectiveness of active vibration control system at mode of interest can be improved with change of PID coefficients, but the stability of system can be reduced. The instability of the active structure is often perturbed by spillover effect. In this paper the importance of considering spillover effects in closed loop of piezoelectric active structures is demonstrated and shown the importance of change the PID coefficients in stability of active vibration control system. Experimental results which correspond to the developed active vibration control system are presented and affirmed stability on proposed active structure.

The subject of the paper is the temperature distribution in the thin metallic ferromagnetic plate influenced by moving linear high frequency induction heater. As a result of high frequency electromagnetic field, conducting currents appear in the part of the plate. Distribution of the eddy-current power across the plate thickness is obtained by use of complex analysis. The influences of the heater frequency, magnetic field intensity and plate thickness on the heat power density were discussed. By treating this power as a moving heat source, differential equations governing distribution of the temperature field are formulated. Temperature across the plate thickness is assumed to be in linear form. Differential equations are analytically solved by using integral-transform technique, Fourier finite-sine and finite-cosine transform and Laplace transform. The influence of the heater velocity to the plate temperature is presented on numerical examples based on theoretically obtained results.