Abstract
The membrane of the LNG carriers consists of thin strips of INVAR(Fe-36%Ni) steel plates, and the junction between INVAR strips is fabricated by welding. Thousands of the raised edge joints, regularly spaced, are located around all the side of the tank corner near the transverse bulkhead, and TIG welding is manually made on the top of the raised edges. Since the thickness of all the laminated edge plies is extremely thin and the weld position is under a bad accessibility, highly skilled workers are required to perform welding relatively for a long welding time. An alternative scheme for the corner membrane fabrication is proposed in the study to improve the installation workability and thus productivity. The scheme replaces the welded edges with the preformed corrugation ones. A panel strip with regularly-spaced corrugations is installed at the corner instead of the individual flat strip of which edge is vertically raised to be welded with the adjacent strip. In the study, a series of the evaluation on the corrugated edge members was performed to assess the applicability to the real LNG carrier fabrication. Opening displacement at the raised edge was experimentally examined. Elastic stiffness regressed from the displacement was nearly same in both edge types. Edge displacement and local stresses were calculated under hydrostatic pressure and temperature change due to liquefied cargo. Fatigue test was performed on both corrugated and welded edge specimens consisting of two or five plies of invar strips. Fatigue strength of the corrugated specimens was not less than that of the welded specimens.
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