International classification society Bureau Veritas has completed a series of consequence assessments with all the major shipyards in Korea, China and Japan to help them speed the implementation of the IACS Harmonised Common Structural Rules.

The assessments of current yard designs were made using BV’s fully adapted suites of user-friendly software for structural analysis, MARS2000 and VeriSTAR Hull.

Christophe Chauviere, head of the development department for Bureau Veritas’ Marine and Offshore division, says, “Because BV played a leading role in the harmonisation of the IACS Common Structural Rules we were able to rapidly update our software for the new standards. As our software tools are not class-specific and many yards already use our tools we were able to help them check out their designs and adjust them to be ready for the entry into force on July 1, 2015.“

MARS2000 is BV’s tool for 2D prescriptive requirements assessment. It is free of charge and free access and its fast and user-friendly input process allow quick assessments of designs against the new harmonised rules. BV has invested heavily in training across its network to ensure local offices can support yards wherever they are.

MARS 2000 delivers assessment of global yielding, ultimate and residual strength criteria, local scantling minimums including yielding and buckling of strakes, longitudinal and transverse stiffeners for cross sections and bulkheads, fatigue calculations of connections between longitudinal stiffeners and primary structure, assessment of the side frames and grab loads for bulk carriers and assessment of the primary supporting members ring for oil tankers.

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“We made it easy for the yards by simplifying conversion of databases for the separate CSR rules for tankers and bulkers into a CSR-H database with the necessary extra data,” explains Chauviere.

VeriSTAR Hull is the BV rule tool for performing analysis of three dimensional models by finite element calculation. VeriSTAR Hull is already available and compliant with the last version of CSR-H including new requirements concerning buckling, aft most – foremost cargo hold assessment and fatigue check.

“During the CSR-H implementation in VeriSTAR Hull, based on our experience of CSRs, a lot of attention has been given to adapting the tools to reduce the time needed for pre and post processing,” says Chauviere. “Yards need to react quickly to new design requirements and these tools deliver rapid and thorough assessment fully compliant with CSR-H. It is the attention to ease of use and speed which makes them stand out.“

Source and Image Credit: Bureau Veritas