Experimental and Numerical Investigations on the Impact Response of Ring-Stiffened Cylindrical Shells

In this paper, an experimental and numerical evaluation of the impact response of ring-stiffened cylinders struck at mid-bay with a mass having a rigid knife-edge indenter is presented. The experiments aimed at reproducing a collision scenario involving offshore installations with supply vessels. Dynamic force-displacement curves and strain measurements are presented. The results are compared with the nonlinear finite element simulations performed using Abaqus/Explicit software. The numerical simulations accurately predicted the force-displacement response of the test models. Detailed information on the response and the deformation behavior of ring-stiffened cylinders are presented based on the experimental and numerical results.