Geometry-Aware Structural-Demand Screening and Vulnerable-Region Identification for a Ship Hull Under Coupled Heave–Pitch Motions
1 Department of Marine Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Nigeria Maritime University, Okerenkoko, Delta State, Nigeria.
2 Department of Marine and Offshore Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
* Corresponding Author
Research Article
International Journal of Frontiers in Engineering and Technology Research, 2026, 11(02), 001–010.
Article DOI: 10.53294/ijfetr.2026.11.2.0022
Publication history:
Received on 05 September 2026; revised on 15 October 2026; accepted on 17 October 2026
Abstract:
This paper presents a geometry-aware structural-demand screening framework for a ship hull subjected to coupled heave–pitch motions in head seas. The work addresses the need to move beyond hydrodynamic susceptibility alone toward hull-resolved structural interpretation, particularly for large ships in which wave-induced motions produce concentrated bending, shear, stress and vulnerability patterns. Recent hydroelastic studies on large containerships and segmented-model experiments have shown that vertical-plane response is closely linked to global structural consequences such as vertical bending moment, vertical shear force and local vulnerability concentration, especially in the low-frequency corridor associated with dominant heave–pitch response. Building on this foundation, the present study converts the coupled hydrodynamic-response basis into longitudinal bending-, shear- and stress-demand proxies and maps these quantities onto the ship’s hull geometry. Results indicate that the primary structural-demand corridor is centred in the midship and adjacent central hull span, while shear-sensitive behaviour remains relatively stronger toward the forward and aft ends. The integrated vulnerability field further reveals two mirrored side-surface hotspot bands in the central hull region rather than a single isolated critical point. The study demonstrates that coupled heave–pitch results can be transformed into a physically meaningful, geometry-aware structural-screening framework without requiring a full direct hydroelastic finite-element solution. This provides a practical bridge between hydrodynamic response analysis and subsequent resilience, mitigation and optimisation studies.
Keywords:
Hydroelasticity; Heave–Pitch Coupling; Structural Demand Screening; Ship Hull Vulnerability; Geometry-Aware Mapping; Vertical Bending Moment; Shear Force
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