Combine

The Combine could be said to be the reverse function of Split. After having selected a number of shell stiffeners, you can combine them to reduce the number of stiffeners. The criteria for which stiffeners may be combined are described below.

The combination of shell stiffeners is done by selecting the Combine function. If the select list contains any shell stiffeners, they will be used. Otherwise, you are asked to indicate a number of shell stiffeners. After this, the selected stiffeners are combined and put in the select list.

Not every pair of shell stiffeners can be combined to one. The following conditions must be met if two stiffeners should be combined:

• They must belong to the same curve branch of a single shell profile.

• They must be adjacent to each other in the shell profile trace.

If possible, the data for the two shell stiffeners will remain unchanged. If, however, they are not the same for both shell stiffeners, the data for the first shell stiffener in the select list will be used. End data for the combined shell stiffener will be taken from the corresponding end of one of the two original shell stiffeners as far as possible. However, if for example the profile types of the shell stiffeners differ, the end cut of one end has to be changed. There are also other cases when such things could happen, especially with some combinations of different kinds of inclination angles at the two ends.