Life-Cycle Ship Reliability Assessment, Damage Detection, and Optimization

Abstract

The present paper collects a body of scientific results obtained at Lehigh University, under the sponsorship of the U.S. Office of Naval Research. The aim of the entire research project was to build a general framework for the probabilistic analysis of ship structures in terms of reliability, redundancy, fatigue, material deterioration, damage detection, monitoring, and inspection optimization. Several articles published in international peer-reviewed journals by the first author and his co-workers address the previously mentioned sub-topics. This paper provides an overview of the results, presents the integrated approach that is being developed, and suggests future lines of research.