A History of Research and a Review of Recent Developments

Aircraft and ships 211
Tirpitz and Bismark (Germany). He then reviewed the rapid development
after the Second World War of our understanding of the effects of explosions
on ship structures, noting particularly the work of King [8.33] and Hollyer
[8.34] reported to the US Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers.
Hollyer treated the important subject of the deformation of plane plates under
shock loading.
Keil discussed damage patterns resulting from a torpedo or mine exploding
in contact with the hull of a ship, an action that usually results in the tearing
of a hole about 10 to 15 metres length in the fore and aft direction. If this
causes rupture of the bulkheads adjacent to the hole, flooding will spread
rapidly. However, the structural damage does not normally extend far, either
in board or fore and aft. A typical rupture pattern is shown in Figure 8.14,
taken from Keil’s paper. If the explosion occurs at a stand-off from the side of
the ship the shell might not rupture, but the plating of the hull could suffer
severe plastic deformation.
In the discussion of Keil’s work, an interesting contribution was made by
Garzke and Dulin, who pointed out that considerable research was carried
out between the two world wars by the Japanese Navy. In 1924 underwater
contact explosion tests were carried out on the hull of an incomplete battleship,
the Tosa, using torpedoes. The first hit amidships was with a weapon containing
Figure 8.14 Internal damage to a hull from a simulated torpedo explosion (from
Keil, 8.31).