Page 11: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (March 1996)

term program concerning pressure measurements aboard a bulk carri- er in sea service began on January 21, 1996, as an additional step in the drive to improve the safety of this type of vessel.

The 18-month-long tests, initiat- ed by German classification society

Germanischer Lloyd (GL), will be carried out on the 64,000-dwt

German-registered bulk carrier

Marine Ranger, which has been made available for the project by its owner, Egon Oldendorff, Lii- beck. The program is being subsi- dized by the German government through the Federal Ministry of

Research and Technology. The 11- year-old ship is in service between

Europe and North and South

America. "This is the first time that pres- sure measurements are being car- ried out on a bulk carrier in sea service," said Dr. Hans Joachim

Hansen, the engineer and naval architect in GL's Rules Develop- ment Department, who is responsi- ble for the project. "Until now, pressure measurements of this kind have only been carried out on models in ship model testing tanks."

GL will publish the results of the measurements. A total of 11 pres- sure gauges have been installed at main sections of the hull to mea- sure the pressure on the hull. In addition, in the same areas, four strain gauges have been installed on the main deck and 32 strain gauges at hold frames and shell, to measure strain/stress behavior due to the motion of the ship at sea.

GL expects to verify load assump- tions for sea pressure in the event of heavy pitch and roll, thus improving the strength assess- ment of local structural details.

The four strain gauges on deck are to provide additional knowledge of the wave bending movements of the hull. GL engineers are hopeful that the gauges and data logging and data processing equipment will withstand the rigors of rough seas during the trial period.

Another system available to shipowners involved in the bulk carrying trade is the BMT Smart system, which currently involves some 35 units being installed by leading operators, including

British Steel, P&O Bulk Shipping,

Wallem Ship Management, China

Navigation and Westfleet AS.

BMT has also interfaced its stress monitoring system to the vessel loading instrument on the China

Navigation Capesize bulk carrier,

Erradale, providing the ship's crew with a global view of related hull data. The system meets the nota- tion standard for stress monitoring recommended by ABS, DNV and

LR.

BMT is also currently managing and leading a $3.3 million Euro- pean Union-funded research pro- gram — Ship Hull Integrity Pro- gram (SHIP) — which will have important benefits for the next generation of stress monitoring systems. This is intended to inte- grate and extend current ship monitoring technologies and exploit new system techniques to aid decision making. The ship cho- sen for the test is British Steel's bulk carrier British Steel.

Meanwhile, DNVs work in stress monitoring started with extensive full-scale measurements in the late 1960s supplemented by compre- hensive FEM calculations to com- pare measurements with analysis results. During the 1970s, a series of measurements were carried out during a pioneering Hull Surveil- lance Project.

In cooperation with Anglo-Eas- tern Ship Management Ltd., Hong

Kong, DNV recently carried out full-scale measurements on a

Capesize bulk carrier. The aim was to monitor local and global stress patterns during loading and unloading and when at sea.

Measurements were carried out onboard the 170,889-dwt bulk car- rier Mineral Zulu.

Strain gauges, accelerometers and pressure gauges were in stalled onboard the ship at 44 loca- tions. The gauges were wired to recording instruments located in the vessel's superstructure and data was transferred to DNV's head office in Oslo at regular inter- vals for analysis. Supplementary data on the ship's loading condi- tions, loading rates/sequences and weather conditions were recorded by the ship's officers. This project played a vital part in developing

DNV's classification standards for hull strength monitoring.

BULK CARRIER NEWS continues on page 1 7.

Daewoo 26

Halla 18

Hanjin 7

Hyundai 30

Samsung 19

Japan

Hitachi 12

IHI 1

Kawasaki 6

Mitsubishi 4

Mitsui 9

NKK 14

Sumitomo 7

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