The object of the work presented in this thesis is to examine numerical procedures which would be used to simulate a variety of responses in ship structures. This work represents part of a major project on the analysis of ship collisions undertaken by the Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering. Some of the work was particularly aimed at developing procedures falling into the category of simplified or superelement finite element method. To this end, effort was spent examining suitable procedures for matrix solution with small computer storage requirements in mind. A numerical procedure is developed, use of which enables the prediction of the response of steel box girders under longitudinal bending or bending and shear. Finally, the last part of the work deals with the computerization of a method for predicting the extent of structural damage incurred when two ships are involved in a collision. Attention is focussed on the bow of the striking ship.