Numerical simulation of protection barriers for bridge piers against ship collision

In the design of bridges across waterways, the importance of a protection system for the bridge piers against ship collisions increases with the increased traffic passing along the channel. To estimate the behaviour of reinforced concrete protection members in steel-concrete composite bridges and to define the failure load of the structures is a challenge due to the complexity of material interfaces, member behaviour and size of structure.

In order to evaluate the ultimate strength and energy absorption capacity of a pier protection system, an advanced finite element model using concrete damaged plasticity model provided in ABAQUS has been utilized and presented in this paper. A possible ship collision to the pier protection barriers is simulated using displacement-induced loading and considering plasticity of steel as well as concrete damage plasticity including the post-peak behaviour. The results from the simulation reveal that the pier protection barriers have sufficient capacity to absorb energy from a ship impact.