Strength of Weight Structures

For shipping - as well as in other areas of the transportation industry - the application of lightweight materials is growing rapidly. Wihtin shipbuilding it is anticipated that particularly high strength aluminium and fiber reinforced composities will continue to gain increasing poplarity over the next decade. Over the past five years the number of high speed crafts has increased by a factor of eight. The basic understanding of the structural behaviour of lightweight materials has not matured to a level anywhere near that conventional steel, however. Therefore, there is a present need - not only to validate and further develop existing theories for the load carrying capacity of lightweight structures - but also to develop new theories for the crushing mechanics of this class of structures.