Real-time hull monitoring

Real-time hull monitoring is a shipboard system of strain gauges, accelerometers, and motion sensors that measures hull-girder stress and ship response continuously and warns the crew when limits approach. Long-base strain sensors at deck level read the longitudinal stress from combined still-water and wave bending; accelerometers at the bow capture slamming and whipping. The data give the bridge a live margin against the design hull-girder stress so speed or heading can be changed before damage, and they build a fatigue-loading history for the structure. IACS Recommendation No. 96 and the class hull-monitoring notations define sensor coverage and alarm levels. Large container ships and bulk carriers carry these systems after several hull-girder failures at sea.