Experimental Methods for Enclosed Mast on Ships

Enclosed mast is widely used on ships due to its excellent stealth capability. Towards the structure design of the enclosed mast, a multi-level test scheme is proposed, including tests of typical structure members, p roportional model of full structures and real-time tracking on board. Several new experimental means are discussed in details, such as mast strength tests due to wind loads by sucking disks and springs and due to swing ing motion by an inverted-model. The results indicate that the proposed test method can successfully evaluate mechanical properties in an all-round way such as stiffness, strength and vibration of the enclosed mast wit h high accuracy, cost efficiency and operability.