Simulation of shipping container impact with bridge girders

Abstract

One of the challenges in bridge design is to ensure bridge girder integrity under accidental collision loads induced by the superstructures of drifting ships. Such accidents can happen either during earthquakes or tsunami inundations when ships are drifted. Accidents may also occur due to human errors in ship manoeuvring or technical failures. The collision accident may induce girder damage and compromise the safety of the bridge. Severe collision-induced structural damage may also lead to the collapse of the whole bridge. Among all collision incidents with bridge girders, shipping containers collision have not been investigated before. In fact, the containers piled on the ship deck can impose considerable impact loads on bridge girders. Therefore, this study aims to numerically investigate shipping container impacts with bridge girders. The impact demand of a single shipping container is first obtained through rigid indenter impact simulations. The effect of the impact angle is also discussed. Next, the impact response of shipping containers considering the arrangement, boundary condition, and interaction between adjacent containers are discussed. The impact force, structural failure mode and energy dissipation during the collision process are discussed.