With the fast growth of shipbuilding industry, in recent years several hundreds of thousands of lifting lugs for a year have been used. This paper is aimed at maximizing the recovering use of lifting lugs. In this study, we have evaluated the structural strength for present and modified lifting lugs under in-plane and out-of-plane load conditions. For this purpose, the equivalent stresses have been calculated by nonlinear elasto-plastic analysis using the finite element program ABAQUS. At the same time, the contact conditions between lifting lug and shackle pin are also considered.