AN APPROXIMATE METHOD TO PRESENT THE BUCKLING STRENGTH OF A GRILLAGE IN A PROBABILISTIC FORM

Abstract

An approximate method for calculation in probabilistic terms of the buckling strength of a grillage under unidirectional in-plane compression is proposed. The geometric properties of longitudinals and transverses and the mechanical properties (yield stress and modulus of elasticity) of the material they are built from are treated as random parameters that may change over ship’s service life. The cumulative distribution function of the grillage’s critical buckling strength is calculated by using an analytical formula for multitude sets of input parameters while all of them having the same level of certainty. The assumption is that the critical buckling strength has the same (or very similar) level of certainty as that of the input parameters. The accuracy of the proposed approximate method is relatively high (the maximal error is around 2%). It is recommended for use when specialized computer programs for application of Monte Carlo simulation method are not available. The method does not require a complicated specialized computer program and can be run on EXCEL computer program.