An Investigation into the Uncertainty in the Calculated Hot-spot Stresses of a Shipside Structure Detail

Fatigue is an important failure mode for ship structures and different fatigue strength assessment methods were introduced over the last decade.Among them the S-N curve approach is the most widely adopted one by the Ship Classification Societies.However,as far as the hot spot stress approach is concerned,there are always very large scatter in the predicted fatigue lives,while the calculated stress concentration factor (SCF) is an important factor.In this paper,an investigation into the uncertainty in the calculated hot spot stresses of a shipside structure detail is performed through the finite element comparative study.Different element type,modeling methods,and two finite element softwares ABAQUS and ANSYS are compared ,the conclusions are presented accordingly.These conclusions may serve as a guide for the hot spot stress calculation of this kind of ship structure detail.