Effect of Ultra-Lightweight High-Ductility Cementitious Composite in Steel–Concrete–Steel (SCS) Plate to Mitigate Ship Slamming Loads

Abstract

Bottom slamming loads cause considerable local damage to a ship’s body and reduce the ship’s structural performance against harsh sea waves. Although extensive studies have worked on stiffening elements to compensate for local damage due to slamming loads, few studies have concentrated on the ship’s body itself while using new generations of composite plates. Accordingly, a numerical study is conducted to determine the effect of using ultra-lightweight high-ductility cementitious composite in steel–concrete–steel (SCS) composite plate to mitigate bottom slamming loads. A large-scale model of the ship using SCS composite plates is modelled in Abaqus software, and fluid–solid (FSI) interaction is precisely modelled using the Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian (CEL) method. The results show that using the CEL method with a large-scale 3D model precisely simulates FSI by providing a 6.5% deviation from the experimental result. Moreover, using an SCS plate when considering ultra-lightweight high-ductility cementitious composite results in a considerable reduction (around 95%) in the maximum strain of the ship body and, accordingly, reduces local damage so that, although about 22% of the strain of the outer layer is transferred to the inner part of the ship body containing only steel plate, almost 0% stress transfer is observed for the SCS-based ship’s structure.