Background
Economy of scale is leading to unprecedented ship sizes. The new dimensions of the Panama Canal (450 x 55 x 18.5 m) underline this development. Order books of the major yards are filling with large container vessels exceeding 13000 TEU cargo capacity. Plans for 16 and 18 kTEU are announced. Such large ships capable of a sustained speed of 25 knots into severe wave conditions, require a thorough design verification in service conditions. In particular the hull response in relation to fatigue life time can not be extrapolated from empirical methods and rules. Both for safety and economy of this new fleet, hull integrity throughout the lifetime of the vessels is paramount.
OBEJCTIVES
The TALLSHIP (Tools & Analysis for Life time of Large Ship) initiative aims to bring together the different interests and experiences to solve the issues related to the design, engineering, construction and operation of ultra large container vessels. In particular the project is aiming at the dynamic hull response and fatigue life prediction.