Evaluation of a novel steel box-soft body combination for bridge protection against ship collision

Abstract Ship–bridge collision is a common type of accident in bridge engineering which could cause heavy casualties and economic losses. To ensure the safety of both the ships and bridges during collision, a novel steel box-soft body combination was proposed in this work. The time history curves of the impact force of three downscaled facility specimens were obtained through the horizontal impact test. The influence of the steel box web spacing and the existence of the anti-collision facilities on the ship collision force reduction rate was investigated. The collision failure modes of ship bow and the anti-collision facilities, as well as the energy absorption behavior of the facility were analyzed. Based on ANSYS/LS-DYNA finite element (FE) analysis software, the nonlinear numerical models of the anti-collision facilities were generated. The analysis results show that the proposed anti-collision facility can not only greatly reduce the ship impact force, but the bow damage as well. The densified steel box web can improve the anti-collision performance of the whole anti-collision facilities to a certain extent. Compared with the direct impact on the steel plate, the maximum reduction rate of peak force of the proposed facility can be achieved to be 31.07%. The anti-collision facilities deformation energy absorption accounts for more than 70% of the total energy, which shows that the facility is able to absorb most of the energy and protect the bow. The FE simulation results coincide with the experimental outcomes, indicating the acceptable accuracy of the FE models. Graphical abstract