Structural evaluation of sandwich material applications on main deck structure of 17500 DWT tanker using finite element method

Ship material technology needs lightweight and strong enough material, where one of the solutions is a sandwich material. Sandwich material combines two or more materials consisting of a faceplate and a core. The faceplate and core materials often used for sandwich materials are steel plates and polyurethane elastomer (PU). However, the high price has made some researchers look for alternative materials to replace PU as the core material. One of the potential materials is fiberglass-reinforced polyurethane elastomer which in this study will be applied numerically using Finite Element Method as a sandwich material on tanker decks. The proposed sandwich material has remarkable potential to be used as a tanker deck with a significant advantage, including 16% or 9.9 tons lighter structure weight, 27% lower stress, and 62% lower deformation compared to conventional deck structures. The weight reduction of 9.9 tons equates to an increase in payload of 9.9 tons, so the reduced weight of the structure can allow tankers to operate economically. Thus, the sandwich material allows for a stronger and lighter deck structure, resulting in a larger tanker payload and economical ships operation.