Structural assessment of a 500-cbm liquefied natural gas bunker ship during bunkering and marine operation under collision accidents

Abstract

This paper presents the structural assessment of a 500-cbm liquefied natural gas bunker ship, which is operated as a ship-to-ship transporter in the coastal area of South Korea, under collision accidents by a numerical approach. Based on marine traffic data, it was assumed that an oil tank is the colliding ship and the bunker ship is the struck ship. A non-linear finite element analysis was conducted under credible scenarios to consider the hydrodynamic response on the struck ship. It was compared to the structural response of the struck ship in bunkering which does not consider the hydrodynamic effect. In addition, major collision parameters that lead to severe damage on the struck ship was observed, and the specific values for ship speed and displacement of a third-party colliding ship during bunkering were suggested to minimise the risk of structural failure.