Effectiveness of Doubler Plates as a Permanent Repair Under Cyclic Loads in a Highly Corrosive Environment

The objective of Phase I is to develop a practical methodology and procedure for implementing risk in the decision-making process for structural maintenance and repair. The specific tasks needed to achieve these objectives of the proposed effort can beenumerated as follows:1. Assessment of Existing Maintenance Strategies for Ship Structures that includes¿ Assessment of inspection and maintenance strategies in ship structures¿ Assessment of risk methods¿ Assessment of total ownership costs2. Development of Risk-Based Maintenance Strategies for Ship Structures that includes¿ Development of a plan to utilize experience, engineering judgment, historical data and expert opinion in identification of critical damage modes and sites for selected ship categories¿ Development of methods for estimating qualitative risk measures at critical locations using event trees¿ Development of methods for screening and ranking of critical locations¿ Development of methods for estimating quantitative risk measures at selected critical locations using probabilistic reliability methods and event trees3. Development of a plan to Utilize Risk Measures for Optimal Planning of Inspections and Maintenance Schedules that includes¿ Development of models for updating inspection and maintenance plans¿ Development of a plan for a risk-based maintenance software tool4. Definition of Software Requirements that includes¿ Preliminary design of software tool¿ Demonstration of proposed methodology5. Demonstration of Methodology for Typical Ship Details that includes¿ Demonstration of software plan6. Optional Effort: Definition of Software Requirements, and Prototype Risk Based Management Tool.7. Development of a plan for Phase II that includes refinement of methodology for software architecture, development of software tool, incorporation of existing guidelines, and demonstration on ship structures.The marine industry needs assistance in managing inspection and maintenance activities in a manner to reduce total ownership cost. There is a need to efficiently identify critical maintenance locations and perform appropriate repairs and fixes. Theanticipated products from this SBIR effort are in the form of risk-based maintenance strategies to reduce total ownership costs, and software that would help in meeting the needs of the industry.