Author(s)

R.C. Batista, E.M.L. Carvalho, N. Roitman & C. Magluta

Abstract

Ship unloaders are normally subjected to a very heavy duty and therefore wear and cracks are nor uncommon in their steel structures which often need some repairing and upgrading. This paper focus on the interactive theoretical- experimental-numerical procedure which was used to build a calibrated FEM model to assess the structural behaviour, to investigate the causes of cracks and to estimate the ulterior service life of two similar large ship unloaders that were on duty for the past 10 years. 1 Introduction Large machines such as ship unloaders in busy ports are subjected to a very severe duty and therefore should be designed under rigorous dynamic criteria if its fatigue li

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