Objectives  As ship structure members are mainly joined together by brackets, the mechanical properties of bracket joint have a great influence on the ultimate strength of the whole ship.

  Methods  Ultimate strength experiments under bending loads are carried out to have better understanding of the mechanical properties and ultimate loads of different brackets, thereby obtaining the load-displacement curves, stress distribution and damage phenomena of specimens with different brackets. Analyses of their ultimate strength and average stiffness are carried out.

  Results  It is observed that the ultimate strength of a triangle bracket specimen is greater than that of an arc bracket specimen, and the average stiffness of a triangle bracket specimen is lower than that of a larger arc bracket specimen. Under the same load, the peak stress of a triangle bracket is greater than that of an arc bracket; specimens with the same kind of bracket and different sizes have the same damage mode; however, different kinds of brackets contribute to varying damage modes even when they have the same size specimens; the ultimate strength and average stiffness between the two groups of specimens have the same changing rule and diverging changing degrees.

  Conclusions  The analysis and obtained results of this paper provide useful references for improving the design of ship brackets.