Optimization Of Structure And Hull Weight Of Double Hull Bulk Carriers

During the past several years, there has been a significant amount of bulk carrier accidents which led to the actions taken by the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and also some of the leading classification societies themselves to investigate the validity of current design requirement. For bulk carriers, the side shell is one of the weakest parts of the hull. Most of previous bulk carriers are single-hull bulk carriers, according to the casualty statistics of bulk carriers, the accident rate of the side shell of the single-hull bulk carriers is highest among hatch, pipe, deck, side shell and bottom etc. In order to solve these problems which appear in hull structure and the process of managing, and improve the security of bulk carriers especially the senile bulk carriers, the double-hull structure of bulk carriers is put to the schedule of IMO increasingly.Speaking to the bulk carrier, the double hull is for strengthening the broadside structure resistance of cargo correlation the corrosion and the mechanical damage, simultaneously, preventing the cargo hold further enters the water after the hull damages. In addition, the double hull bulk carrier has the remarkable superiority on saving the time of unloading cargo in the port and the cargo hold cleaning up as well as the cargo hold maintenance cost. Many advantages are brought for the structure strength, use and maintenance by introducing the double-hull structure, but the structure weight is increased and the volume of the cargo hold is decreased at the same time. Therefore, the optimized design research to the hull structure has the significant theory significance and the practical significance.This article proposes the ships structure optimization design general step on the foundation of analysing traditional project structure optimization design method and the step, and then separately establishes the structure optimization design mathematical model of the longitudinal, the transverse and transverse bulkhead members of the double hull bulk carrier. Finally the"ManHai"single hull bulk carrier is calculated using the Evolutionary Computation, the result indicates that the weight of the double hull bulk carrier can be reduced to a reasonable amount in comparison with the existing single hull types, not optimized.