What we mean here by Transportation is really almost a union of stability, seakeeping, and stress analysis. In particular, we are interested in the integrity of structures being transported on vessels across the sea.

This figure is fairly typical of the class of problem we want to address. Notice that here we have three distinct structures being transported on the same barge. At a minimum, the following should be considered:

• Intact and Damaged Stability,
• Seakeeping of the tow,
• Vortex shedding for element in the structure
• The structural integrity of each element in the structure,and
• Fatigue in the structure.

Each of these topics will be dealt with in the detailed examples, but one thing needs to be mentioned here. If one is doing fatigue, the flexibility of the barge is important. This is because quite a bit of the damage occurs through wave bending moments being passed through the barge and into the structures. For a discussion of this topic from a theoretical perspective, Click Here.