Stress Monitoring System

A stress monitoring system is the shipboard installation that measures hull-girder and local structural loads in service, combining long-base strain sensors at deck amidships with motion and slamming-pressure sensors to give the master real-time bending-moment, fatigue, and whipping data against design and class limits. Class societies issue a hull-stress-monitoring (HSM) notation for the installed system, and SOLAS Chapter XII Reg.11 mandates loading and stress instrumentation for certain bulk carriers. It is standard on large bulkers and container ships, where heavy-weather loads and ice transit can approach structural limits.