Environmental Description For Long-Term Load Response of Ship Structures

This paper discusses the influence of an adjustment of the Global Wave Statistics data for the North Atlantic and worlwide trade on the long-term load response of ship structures. Special emphasis is given to the wave period, where a general procedure for correction of the wave period bias, based on the average wavee steepness, is suggested. Using the calibrated wave period, an adusted scatter diagram for the North Atlantic is proposed. The scatter diagram is numerically generated from a joint distribution combining a marginal 3-parameter Weibull distribution for significant wave height with a conditional log-normal distribution for zero-crossing wave period. An adjusted description of the worldwide environment is also suggested. Numerical examles illustrating the effect of the Global Wave Statistics wave period accuracy on the ship load response are given.