Fatigue Strength Assessment of Trimaran Cross-Deck Structure Based on Spectral and Simplified Fatigue Method

In order to investigate the fatigue behaviour of trimaran cross-deck structural details, the spectral and simplified fatigue analysis approaches are proposed. In spectral fatigue approach, three-dimensional (3D) linear potential flow theory and global FE analysis are used for wave loads and stress transfer functions calculation; the stochastic spectral fatigue analysis is carried out considering the weighted wave headings factors. In simplified fatigue approach, based on the direct calculation procedure of LR rules, the evaluation of simplified fatigue loads and loading conditions are presented, and the stress ranges are obtained by global finite element (FE) analysis. Then the fatigue lives of a few hot spots are computed to demonstrate the application of the proposed method. The result shows that the method given in this paper has a good applicability. This study offers methodology for the fatigue analysis of trimaran cross-deck structure, which may be regarded as helpful references for structural design of these types of ships.