Progressive structural failure of the RoRo side hull during accidental powered-bow collisions

Contact phenomena can be advantageous in several activities, such as material forming for a hull plate of a ship in shipbuilding. However in ocean engineering and marine structure, sometimes contact cannot be controlled and produces an impact which causes immense casualties for ship, crew, cargo and sea environment. Collision appears as the most common impact form which its influence to destruction of a sea environment has been acknowledged. In this study, a concern is addressed to a structural observation under a ship collision. A side structure of a passenger ship is modelled to be the target ship while the other ship so called the striking ship is deployed as an indenter to penetrate the target ship. Results indicate that the interactions in contact process involve not only the upper deck but also the bulbous bow of the striking ship. Load and draught height of the striking ship can change which lead to a change of impact target and deformation on the target ship. Finally, the confirmation of energy that is used to destroy the struck ship is summarized.