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180 m Cargo Ship Hull with Framing
Verification of hull girder bending, transverse bulkhead racking, and free-free dry vibration modes under quiet water and wave loads.
A 180-meter cargo vessel undergoes cyclic sagging and hogging bending moments exceeding 2.1 GN·m alongside hydrostatic hull pressure. Designers must evaluate combined shell-stiffener stress distributions, double bottom transverse stiffness, and dry natural vibration frequencies without artificial boundary constraints. This WebCAE FEA model compares 3D multi-patch quad shell results directly against Timoshenko thin-walled girder theory with shear-flow corrections.
1. Geometry & FEA Mesh
- •Overall dimensions 180 × 28 × 16.5 m with 10.5 m design draft and 48,099 t total displacement (structural steel 6,082 t, machinery/superstructure 1,089 t, cargo 40,928 t).
- •53 structured quad-mesh shell patches comprising outer bottom, bilge strake (R = 2.5 m), vertical side shell, double bottom floor, second deck (z = 8.5 m), main deck, and 7 transverse bulkheads.
- •34,724 eccentric T-beam stiffeners (flush=inner) representing longitudinal stringers, side frames, deck girders, and transverse floor webs on shared mesh nodes.
- •Mesh discretization totaling 27,216 MITC4 quads and 24,211 structural nodes (145,266 system DOFs).
2. Loads & Boundary Conditions
- •Self-equilibrating static loads: gravity (frame gravity on), zone-distributed cargo on double bottom (4.5–10.8 t/m²), and cell-integrated hydrostatic water pressure.
- •Wave condition (λ = 180 m, wave height h = 9 m): balanced waterline elevation with trim/sinkage iterative equilibrium and 3-2-1 isostatic boundary soft supports.
- •Modal analysis in free-free configuration (free=on) shifting 6 rigid-body floating modes to extract unconstrained elastic hull girder vibration frequencies.
3. Simulation Results & Findings
- ✓Fundamental 2-node vertical hull girder bending frequency f₁ = 1.167 Hz (within 1.7% of Timoshenko girder reference with closed multi-cell shear flow).
- ✓Midship wave sagging deflection matches analytical reference within 0.38%; deck tensile stress matches within 1.9% at 2.1 GN·m bending moment.
- ✓Eigenvalue buckling factor under sagging wave load reaches λ₁ = 1.21 on upper deck panels between longitudinal stiffeners and transverse beams.
Marine engineering bureaus use WebCAE to conduct preliminary hull girder section scoping and vibration audits in seconds directly in the browser before exporting to classification society software. Pre-solved .caeweb project bundles allow shipyards and clients to interactively inspect stress contours and wave deflection shapes on any device without local CAD/CAE installations.
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