4. Basic Structural Components

A ship is an assembly of various types of structural components. All these structural components provide the basic strength and support to the ship’s shell structure. These components broadly fall under either longitudinal or transverse components. These can be in the form of basic structural members, e.g. deck longitudinal, side shell frame, etc. or prefabricated components, e.g. plate floor, wing tank transverse, etc. In ship construction an orthogonal form of stiffening arrangement is followed. The stiffening members are never arranged in an arbitrary fashion nor in any oblique direction. The reason being, the various structural components are prefabricated and they are subsequently aligned and welded in position. Brackets play a major role in making the connections between various components and thus providing for the load path. The primary failure cause of these brackets is buckling. To prevent such failures, flanged brackets or using curling, providing higher corrosion margin or elimination of lighting holes and various cutouts in highly loaded areas are used.