T&R Bulletin R-41: An Approach to Conducting Timely Structural Fatigue Analysis of Large Tankers (1992)

The purpose of this project was to define and validate an improved rationally-based design and analysis procedure for computing fatigue damage of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Service tankers is presented. The method considers not only damage due to hull girder bending, but also damage due to local panel pressure fluctuations. This task requires four basic steps: specifying a lifetime wave environment, generating a hydrodynamic model, calculating cyclic stresses due to the wave environment, and computing the fatigue damage due to such stresses. The implementation of each step is discussed with an emphasis on applying existing research tools.