Reliability analysis of ship hulls made of composite materials under sagging moments

An approach is presented to assess the reliability of ship hulls made of composite materials under sagging moments. Buckling, first-ply failure, and ultimate collapse are regarded as the three possible failure modes of ship hulls of composite materials under sagging moments. Reliability estimates were carried out by a combination of the first-order second-moment method and the response surface methodology. A ship hull of composite materials under sagging moments was evaluated and the results showed that the effects on reliability estimates of the model uncertainty in the longitudinal strength of the ship hull, the model uncertainty of the sagging moments, and the sagging moments were significant, whereas the influences of the stochastic characteristics of material elastic moduli were relatively unimportant.