/.- .

,% ,

~.
e
\.+*”:.; THE”SOCIETV OF NAVAL ARCHITECTS AND MARINE ENGINEERS
601 WVOniS Avenue, Suite 400, Jersey City, New Jersey 07306 USA
Paper _wd at the Marks Smctmal In@cm,
SWIM
Maintenarm, and t#onimringSympsium
NatmalHoml,Atiingmn,Virginia, Msrti 1&19, 1931

Hull Strapping of Ships

N.S. Basar, -M. Rosenblatt & Son, Inc., New York, New York
S.J. Allen, U.S. CoastGuard Research&DevelopmentCenter,Groton,Connecticut
R.B.Hulls, (formerlyof M. Rosenblatt
& Son,Inc.)JJHInc.,Hoboken,NewJersey

ASSTRACT The use of strapping for category (a)

purposes is very rare in present day
The paper presents the, resultsof a applications; it was resorted to during and
study, sponsored by the Ship Structure after World War II on early all-welded steel
Coiimittee and administered by the U.S. Coast ships. Riveted crack arresters (straps) were
Guard Research. and Development Center, which installed on many T-2 tankers and Liberty
involved a thorough survey of past strapping ships to prevent brittle fracture.
designs on fourteen different classes of
ships. Data on details of past strapping Many ships have been strapped in the
designs were obtained from various sources past for category (b) purposes. Typical
including shipowmers, shipyards, applications have included changing the
classification .societie6, and the U.S. Navy. veesel’s service from limited inland
The variations in the ‘approach to strapping waterways or lake operation to ocean-going
design details were noted and a methodology service; converting, a vessel from a dry cargo
Was developed. for use in preparing strapping carrier to a container carrier or
designs for new applications. oil/bulk/ore carrier; and vice verea.

INTRODUCTION Category” (c) is the most common

justification for strapping and is generally
During the service lifetime of a ship, used in conjunction with jumboizing the
it may be necessary to increase the strength vessel by inserting a new rnidbody. Often in
and stiffness of its hull girder structure such cases, the new midbody is constructed to
for .a ntunber of reasons. Qne of the most the original scantlings and inserted between
common methods of accomplishing this purpose the fore and aft bodies of the existing ship.
is “strapping”. In order to meet the hull girder section
modulus requirements for the now increased
Strapping.of ships’ hulls involves the vessel size, continuous doubler plates are
attachment to the main hull plating of long added to extend over both the new midbody and
and continuous widths of plates that the existing fore and aft bodies.
essentially “strap” the existing structure
and provide additional material to increase This paper discusses the findings from
the hull girder section modulus. The reasons a Ship StructureCommitteeproject,Reference
for and the objectives of strapping a ship’s #l. The objectives of the study were to
hull may fall into one or more of the surveypast strappingdesigns with regard to
following categories: the method of attachment, longitudinal
extent, location, width and thickness
(a) To. imprive thecontinuity of the tapering,and other details of the doublers,
structure and to prevent the and to developa practicaland cost effective
recurrence of persistent failures design approach for future strapping
euch as cracks, severe buckling applications.
and extensive distortion of
plates, stiffeners, etc. To achieve these objectives, survey
questionnaires were sent to the following:
(b) To enable the ship to withstand
more severe service requirements o u-s. based shipowners and
than that for which it wae operators
originally designed and built.
o <Foreign shipowners and operators
(c) To increase the cargo and/or
passenger carrying capacity of o U.S. shipyards
the ship by j~boizing, i.e.
increasing the vessel’s size by o U.S. Coast Guard
lengthening, widening, deepening
or by any combination thereof. o U.S. Navy

II-F-I