A comparative study for the fatigue assessment of a ship structure by use of

hot spot stress and structural stress approaches

Myung Hyun Kim
a,
, Seong Min Kim
a
, Young Nam Kim
b
, Sung Geun Kim
b
,
Kyoung Eon Lee
b
, Gyeong Rae Kim
b
a
Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Pusan National University, 30 Jangjeon-dong, Geumjeong-gu, Busan 609-735, Republic of Korea
b
Hull Design Team, Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction CO. LTD., Busan, Republic of Korea
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 25 November 2008
Accepted 6 July 2009
Available online 15 July 2009
Keywords:
Fatigue design
Structural stress
Hot spot stress
Welded structures
Fatigue life
Fatigue strength evaluation
a b s t r a c t
Recently, a mesh-size insensitive structural stress denition (Battelle structural stress method) has been
proposed. This method gives a stress state at a weld toe with a relatively coarse mesh, such as up to 2t
(t plate thickness) or irregular mesh shapes. The structural stress denition is based on the
elementary structural mechanics theory and provides an effective measure of a stress state in front of a
weld toe. In this present study, a fatigue strength assessment was carried out for a side shell connection
of a container vessel using both the hot spot stress and the structural stress methods. A consistent
approach to computing extrapolated hot spot stress for design purposes based on converged hot spot
stresses is described and current fatigue guidance is evaluated. Fatigue strength predicted by the two
methods, i.e. hot spot stress and structural stress approaches, at hot spot locations of a typical ship
structure are compared and discussed.
& 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The welding procedure creates geometrical and metallurgical
discontinuities in the vicinity of the welded joint. Defects such as
inclusion, pores, cavities and undercuts are also inherent. In
addition, residual stress and distortions are found to be inevitably
caused by heating and cooling processes. For these reasons, the
fatigue fracture of a welded structure is even more complicated to
evaluate. As ship and offshore structures are also typical steel-
plated structures involving a welding procedure, they are directly
exposed to fatigue damage.
It is known that there are three main fatigue life evaluation
methods, including the stress-life approach, the strain-life
approach, and the crack propagation approach (Dowling, 1998).
The stress-life approach, which has been the standard fatigue
design method used over the last century, is employed when an
applied load causes relatively low stress. This method is well
presented by Basquin who suggested establishing a loglog
straight line SN relationship in 1910 (Basquin, 1910).
If the stress-life approach is used, the validity of fatigue design
can be assessed by quantifying applied local stresses and by
selecting a proper SN curve. Currently, there are three main
approaches available in the denition of local stress; nominal,
notch and hot spot stresses (Fricke, 2003).
IIW FAT class (Hobbacher, 1995) and BS7608 (1993) are
representative nominal stress based SN curves. Gurney (1979)
investigated major factors such as the mean stress effect, the size
effect and so on. Maddox (1991) described the theoretical
background of a design SN curve.
Radaj (1990) developed the notch stress approach based on
Neubers micro-structural support hypothesis by suggesting an
additional ctitious radius r
f
( 1mm for steel) at the notch,
which allows the local stress to be analyzed directly without
requiring an SCF or fatigue notch factor. Notch stress (Radaj, 1990;
Radaj and Sonsino, 1998) is not normally applied to assess the
fatigue strength of welded structures due to the difculty in
evaluating the exact non-linear peak stress at the weld toe and
due to the uncertainty of the weld toe shape. Thus, nominal stress
has been extensively employed to assess the fatigue strength of
welded structures. A proper SN curve classied with respect to
weld joint type can be used considering geometric discontinuity.
Difculties are encountered occasionally in applying the SN
curves available in the literature, particularly for complex
structures such as ships.
The hot spot stress method has been developed based on the
nite element method and its characteristics. The hot spot stress
is dened as the local stress obtained by extrapolating stresses at
certain distances away from a geometrically discontinuous area
such as a weld toe. The result of this approach, however, is known
to be sensitive to element type and mesh size in the vicinity of the
weld toe due to stress concentration. Although hot spot stress was
originally developed to assess the fatigue strength of tubular
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Ocean Engineering
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doi:10.1016/j.oceaneng.2009.07.001

Corresponding author. Tel.: +8251510 2486; fax: +82515128836.

E-mail address: kimm@pusan.ac.kr (M.H. Kim).
Ocean Engineering 36 (2009) 10671072
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joints (AlmrNss, 1985), the stress has been widely applied to
evaluate the fatigue behavior of plated structures, particularly in
the shipbuilding industry. Today, the linear extrapolation method
is mostly applied to assess the fatigue strength of plated
structures among major classication societies and IIW (Niemi
et al, 2006).
Recently, Battelle structural stress has been introduced as a
mesh-size insensitive method (Dong, 2001). The structural stress
is expressed in the form of membrane and bending stress
components that satisfy equilibrium conditions based on nite
element analysis. In this method, balanced nodal forces are used
for estimating the local stresses in the vicinity of the considered
weld toe. The results, therefore, have less deviation than the stress
obtained from shape functions inside elements. Doerk et al.
(2003), Poutiainen et al. (2004) and Fricke and Kahl (2005) carried
out comparative studies of structural stress and other calculation
methods.
Although many studies have been carried out on structural
stress (Kang et al, 2007), only minimal research has been
conducted on the fatigue life estimation for ship structures. Thus,
the aim of this study is to assess and compare the fatigue life of
ship structures employing both structural stress and hot spot
stress methods. FE analyses for side shell connections of a
container vessel were performed to calculate structural stress
and hot spot stress.
2. Structural stress
2.1. Denition of structural stress
The stress gradient through plate thickness is formed as
illustrated in Fig. 1(a). The stress distribution can be divided into a
linear part and a non-linear part due to the notch effect at the
weld bead. The former provides a clue to the denition of
structural stress which is the summation of the membrane (s
m
)
and the bending stress (s
b
) derived from the mechanical
equilibrium condition in front of the weld toes. The latter can be
evaluated by a crack propagation model with the notch effect
determined by plate thickness and type of loading mode to assess
fatigue life.
Once the nodal forces (F
y1
, F
y2
) in the y direction and moments
with respect to the x axis are obtained as shown in Fig. 1(c), the
corresponding line forces (f
y1
, f
y2
) can be calculated considering
the mechanical equilibrium as derived in Eqs. (1)(3). The
derivation of line moments (m
x1
, m
x2
) is the same as that of the
Fig. 1. Denition of structural stress. (a) Stress at weld toe, (b) stress decomposition and (C) method in single shell element.
M.H. Kim et al. / Ocean Engineering 36 (2009) 10671072 1068
ARTICLE IN PRESS
line forces with respect to the nodal moments (M
x1
, M
x2
)
X
F
yi

Z
l
0
f
y
x dx 0 1
X
F
yi
x
i

Z
l
0
f
y
x x dx 0 2
f
y1

2
l
2F
y1
F
y2
; f
y2

2
l
2F
y2
F
y1
3
m
x1

2
l
2M
x1
M
x2
; m
x2

2
l
2M
x2
M
x1
4
where l is the element size along the weld line as illustrated in
Fig. 1(c).
Once the line force and the line moment are available, the
structural stress at each node can be given by Eq. (5),
s
s
s
m
s
b

f
y
t

6m
x
t
2
5
where s
s
is the structural stress concentration effect due to joint
geometry, and s
m
and s
b
the membrane and bending stresses
respectively.
While the previous description describes how to calculate
structural stress in a single element, structural stress in multi-
elements can be calculated in a similar manner.
2.2. Equivalent structural stress with the master SN curve
The equivalent structural stress parameter can be dened by
normalizing the structural stress range Ds
s
with two variables
expressed in terms of t and r (bending ratio, r s
b
/s
s
) in Eq. (6)
(Dong et al. 2002),
DS
eq

Ds
s
t
2m=2m
Ir
1=m
CN

1
m
0
6
where the thickness term t
(2m)/2m
(according to Dong et al.
(2002), m 3.6; the exponent of the Paris crack propagation)
becomes unity for t 1 (unit thickness) and therefore, the
thickness t can be interpreted as a ratio of actual thickness t to
a unit thickness, rendering the term dimensionless. With this
interpretation, the equivalent DS
eq
retains a stress unit. I(r) the
function of bending ratio (r) which indicates corrections depend-
ing on various loading modes, and it can be divided into a load-
controlled condition and a displacement-controlled condition. For
details of deriving the I(r) function, refer to Battelle (2004). In this
study, the loading mode effects I(r)
1/m
are employed as Eqs. (7)
and (8) for edge crack and semi-elliptical crack, respectively.
Ir
1=m
2:4712r
6
5:5828r
5
5:0365r
4
1:9617r
3
0:4463r
2
0:035r 1:1392 7
Ir
1=m
0:0011r
6
0:0767r
5
0:0988r
4
0:0946r
3
0:0221r
2
0:014r 1:2223 8
Since the thickness correction, the loading mode effects, and
the geometrical discontinuities have already been included in
Eq. (6), any type of weld joints or loading modes can be evaluated
consistently with the equivalent structural stress. Based on Eq. (6),
over 2000 results of the existing fatigue tests for both various
weld joints and loading modes are shown in Fig. 2, and a master
SN curve is determined by Ha (2006). Based on Fig. 2, the
required parameters for the SN relationship can be obtained
from Eqs. (9) and (10). Here, the design master SN curve is
selected on the basis of two standard deviations with respect to
the mean SN curve.
For the mean master SN curve, C 21672.4, m
0
3.08
logN
f
13:33 3:08logDS
eq
9
For the design master SN curve, C 15465.6 and m
0
3.08
logN
f
12:88 3:08logDS
eq
10
For a design life of 20 years, the fatigue damage ratio has been
calculated with the equivalent structural stress (ESS) and the
design master SN curve. In order to compare with the fatigue
lives from the hot spot stress (HSS) approach, the SN curve from
DNV Classication Note no. 30.7 was employed.
3. Hot spot stress
For the evaluation stress for welded joints, hot spot stress has
been adopted by major classication societies for obtaining local
stresses at a weld toe. Hot spot stress is dened as the stress
obtained from extrapolation of surface stresses at a certain
distance from the weld toe. There are a few different stress
extrapolation techniques used as commonly recommended
procedures for the calculation of hot spot stresses in welded
structures. In this study, the hot spot stress was assumed as the
linear extrapolation of stress over reference points at distances of
Fig. 2. The master SN curve by using equivalent structural stress parameter.
Hot spot stress
Nominal stress
Notch stress
Distance from weld toe
Stress
t/2 3t/2
Fig. 3. Denition of hot spot stress in accordance with Classication Societies.
M.H. Kim et al. / Ocean Engineering 36 (2009) 10671072 1069
ARTICLE IN PRESS
0.5t and 1.5t from the weld toe as illustrated in Fig. 3 if the mesh
size is less than or equal to 1.0t.
The parameters for the use of the DNV curve are as given in
Eq. (11). The PalmgrenMiner rule was used to calculate the
damage ratio.
logN
f
12:76 3:0logDs 11
4. Fatigue life assessment of ship structural details
Fatigue life assessment of welded joints in ship structures can
be carried out using long-term stress distribution and SN curves.
In case of simplied fatigue analysis, fatigue strength is
analyzed using loadings dened from classication societies,
rather than using ship motion analysis. The fatigue damage ratio
is nally estimated using the PalmgrenMiner rule with a long-
term stress range distribution. The long-term stress range
distribution is dened by the Weibull distribution. The fatigue
life is calculated employing Weibull distribution factors (scale and
shape parameters) and relevant SN curves.
A ow diagram of fatigue analysis procedures is shown in
Fig. 4, where equivalent structural stress and hot spot stress are
applied using the master SN curve and the DNV SN curve,
respectively. Load response in the diagram includes the loadings
from internal or external pressure and hull girder wave bending
moments. Using each equivalent structural stress and hot spot
stress dened with respect to load cases, combined stress ranges
can be obtained and the fatigue damage ratio is calculated from
long-term stress range distribution and the master SN curve and
DNV SN curve.
In the simplied fatigue analysis (DNV, 2003), dynamic loading
may be divided into global wave bending moments and local load
such as external pressure and internal pressure.
The following eight dynamic load cases have been applied to
the FE model and applied load cases are listed in Table 1. The
boundary condition of the nite element model was applied as a
simple support condition.
4.1. Fatigue strength assessment in side-longitudinal web
connections of a container vessel
In this study, typical fatigue crack points are assumed in the
vicinity of intersection of side longitudinals and the transverse
web frame for an 8100TEU class container carrier. The full-ship FE
model used in this study is shown in Fig. 5. Commercial nite
element software, MSC Patran and Nastran, were used as the
pre/post processor and solver, respectively, for numerical analysis.
A 4node shell element is used for both hot spot stress and
structural stress.
FE analysis is carried out for a full ship, while structural
stresses and hot spot stresses are calculated in critical details of
side longitudinals located between the design draft (T
F
) and
ballast draft (T
B
). Fig. 6 shows the particular section of the web
frame and local area in the nite element model. In this study, two
different types of stiffeners were modeled in order to compare
with fatigue life assessment with respect to stiffener type. One is Fig. 4. Flow diagram over fatigue analysis procedures.
Table 1
Load cases considered for fatigue calculation.
Loading type Loading condition
LC1 Vertical wave bending moment Fully loaded/ballast
LC2 Horizontal wave bending moment Fully loaded
LC3 Horizontal wave bending moment Ballast
LC4 Torsional moment Fully loaded
LC5 Torsional moment Ballast
LC6 External pressure Fully loaded
LC7 External pressure Ballast
LC8 Internal pressure Ballast
Fig. 5. Finite element model of container vessel.
Fig. 6. Section of midship in nite element model.
M.H. Kim et al. / Ocean Engineering 36 (2009) 10671072 1070
ARTICLE IN PRESS
an L-type stiffener as shown in Fig. 7(a) and the other is a T-type
stiffener as shown in Fig. 7(b) with a 1.0t mesh size. Three fatigue
crack points for an L-type slot detail and a T-type slot detail are
dened as shown in Fig. 7(a) and (b), respectively. For each hot
spot (HS) point, semi-elliptical cracks are anticipated at HS 1 and
HS 2 on the longitudinal face plate and collar plate, while edge
cracks are expected at HS 3.
4.2. Fatigue life assessment using hot spot stress and structural stress
The results of hot spot stress and structural stress are shown in
Table 2. As shown in the table, the results of hot spot stress and
structural stress for each load case are found to be similar.
With respect to the HS points, equivalent structural stresses
are established as listed in Table 3. The I(r) function for HS 1 and
HS 2 is based on the load-controlled condition, while the I(r)
function for HS 3 is based on the structural joint condition.
Table 3 lists fatigue lives calculated based on the above
procedure. While the structural stress approach gives a higher
fatigue life at HS 1, only a small difference in fatigue life is found
between the two results of the hot spot stress approach. In terms
of fatigue life with respect to slot detail, the T-type slot detail
gives a much higher fatigue life at HS 1.
Calculated fatigue lives for HS 2 are also listed in Table 4.
According to these results, fatigue life obtained from the
structural stress approach is smaller than that obtained from
the hot spot stress approach. Indeed, a difference of less than 20%
in fatigue life is considered to be reasonable. In addition, the
tendency of fatigue life with respect to slot detail is different than
that of HS 1. It is considered that the stress gradient under
bending stress in the unsymmetrical stiffener is lower than that in
the symmetrical stiffener at the end of the ange as illustrated in
Fig. 8. At the same time, bending stress due to external pressure
(LC6, LC7) is dominant at HS 2.
An evaluation of fatigue lives at HS 3 is carried out in the
same manner as HS 1 and HS 2. The calculated fatigue life of
the T-type is higher than that of the L-type slot detail, as
expected.
Fig. 7. Fatigue crack denition considering slot details. (a) L-type and (b) T-type.
Table 2
Results of hot spot stress and structural stress with respect to load cases.
L-type T-type
HSS(MPa) SS(MPa) HSS(MPa) SS(MPa)
HS1
LC1 45.20 43.87 38.62 37.67
LC2 42.05 40.82 35.57 34.74
LC3 31.18 30.28 26.38 25.77
LC4 5.58 5.38 5.06 5.42
LC5 4.50 4.34 4.08 3.91
LC6 43.54 40.78 27.55 23.31
LC7 24.89 23.13 13.44 10.79
LC8 23.66 21.90 13.4 11.92
HS2
LC1 14.81 19.67 14.85 13.28
LC2 18.33 17.57 3.21 6.86
LC3 13.6 13.03 2.38 5.06
LC4 8.38 10.47 8.28 9.75
LC5 6.77 8.45 6.68 7.86
LC6 60.53 65.42 73.16 82.36
LC7 76.46 85.42 87.40 99.93
LC8 22.57 30.85 18.91 26.06
HS3
LC1 38.73 38.22 32.47 32.90
LC2 31.29 28.89 29.04 29.63
LC3 23.21 23.24 21.55 21.98
LC4 8.37 7.63 5.61 18.10
LC5 6.76 6.16 4.53 14.62
LC6 13.53 15.15 18.24 5.70
LC7 3.94 1.66 6.22 0.13
LC8 18.29 14.03 17.59 10.73
Table 3
Results of equivalent structural stress at L-type and T-type HS points (unit: MPa).
HS 1 HS 2 HS 3
L-type
LC1 66.36 27.03 61.91
LC2 61.74 23.62 46.88
LC3 45.80 17.53 37.71
LC4 8.13 14.29 12.38
LC5 6.57 11.54 10.00
LC6 61.64 90.35 22.20
LC7 34.96 116.83 2.57
LC8 33.11 42.53 22.93
T-type
LC1 57.00 17.91 51.99
LC2 52.55 9.17 46.54
LC3 38.98 6.76 34.53
LC4 7.22 12.99 8.74
LC5 5.83 10.47 7.06
LC6 32.71 115.28 30.12
LC7 16.33 139.31 11.03
LC8 18.03 35.99 25.69
M.H. Kim et al. / Ocean Engineering 36 (2009) 10671072 1071
ARTICLE IN PRESS
5. Conclusion
Fatigue assessment of a side-longitudinal stiffener considering
three hot spot points in an 8100TEU containership was carried
out by using structural stress and hot spot stress approaches.
Based on the results, the main ndings of this study are as follows.
A consistent structural stress approach is employed for the
fatigue strength assessment of side-longitudinal stiffeners of an
8100TEU container vessel. At the same time, a fatigue strength
assessment using the structural stress approach was carried out to
compare with the hot spot stress method. According to the results,
it is demonstrated that the two methods provide consistent
results of fatigue life estimation within 10% difference with the
exception of the T-HS2 case.
In general, T-type longitudinal stiffeners exhibit higher fatigue
strength compared to that of L-type longitudinal stiffeners. At
certain locations such as HS 2, however, L-type longitudinal
stiffeners, which are unsymmetrical, exhibit higher fatigue
strength under bending loads.
For the fatigue strength assessment of ships, the structural
stress approach is found to be a viable alternative. Further study of
the fatigue strength assessment of ship and offshore structures
with different mesh size and shape is required.
Acknowledgement
This study was performed under the Advanced Ship Engineer-
ing Research Center of the Korea Science & Engineering Founda-
tion. The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Hanjin
Heavy Industries and Construction CO., LTD.
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Table 4
Result of fatigue lives at hot spot points.
ESS HSS
L-HS 1 Damage ratio 0.130 0.138
Fatigue life (year) 77 73
T-HS 1 Damage ratio 0.05 0.06
Fatigue life (year) 189 157
L-HS 2 Damage ratio 0.247 0.217
Fatigue life (year) 41 46
T-HS 2 Damage ratio 0.334 0.242
Fatigue life (year) 30 41
L-HS 3 Damage ratio 0.040 0.037
Fatigue life (year) 249 269
T-HS 3 Damage ratio 0.039 0.031
Fatigue life (year) 254 315
Fig. 8. Bending stress in symmetrical and unsymmetrical panel stiffener with
same web and ange areas.
M.H. Kim et al. / Ocean Engineering 36 (2009) 10671072 1072