Evaluation on Risk for Ship Collision with Archbridge and Crash Capability of Anti-Collision

The development of the highway traffic has promoted the construction of increasing numbers of river-crossing bridges, but at the same time, large-size ship causes serious threat to structural safety of the bridge. The probability of bridge-ship collision increases, water safety accidents have happened frequently in the recent years. Arch bridge is easier to be subjected to the threat of ship collision because of small navigation clearance on both sides. However, study on the destructive consequences by ship impact on arch bridge is seldom. This paper takes reinforced concrete arch bridge as an example, on the basis of the forecast of the water-level frequency, flow velocity and long-term navigation density of the ship, the ship collision probability on different parts of the arch ring at different water levels are analyzed to deduce the annual collapse frequency of the grand bridge. The risk matrix evaluation result shows that there is medium risk in long-term. The establishment of finite element numerical model concludes the energy absorption and the change process when the arch ring suffers from collision from the ship under different working conditions as well as the relationship among the impact force, crown displacement and collision depth along with time change. According to the result of simulated analysis, the maximum collision force of the main arch ring suffered from the ship is 25.9MN, and the resistance of the main arch ring is 33.6 MN, so the existing structure basically meets the requirement for fortification against the ship collision. The numerical simulation results are qualitatively consistent with the risk of evaluation. The results of the analysis can provide scientific foundation to the maintenance and management of the arch bridge.

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