A hybrid ship hull model made with a steel truss and composite sandwich panels was tested and analyzed with the goal of gaining
insight into how well this structural concept holds up after major damage. One of the ideas of the concept was to mount the
sandwich panels to the steel truss such that they can be blown out in a controlled fashion to ventilate a large internal blast.
The hull should be designed to have sufficient strength for the ship to reach a port safely even after such extensive damage.
A 6-m model of such a hybrid ship hull, consisting of a stainless steel truss and 60 composite sandwich panels, was manufactured
and mechanically tested. A number of panels were then removed one by one and the hull was retested to the design load after
each panel had been removed. The removed panels simulated major damage. After nine panels had been removed, from all the different
areas of the hull, it could still carry the design load, although with considerable nonreversible deformations of the hull
girder. The hull was eventually loaded to final failure, which occurred at 25% above the design load.
Key words Hybrid ship hull - Composite material - Stainless steel - Damage tolerance - Mechanical testing - Finite element analysis (FEA)