INVESTIGATION OF SHIP IMPACT SCENARIOS AND MITIGATION MEASURES

Ship impact is an important loading scenario for analysis and design of bridges, oil platforms, and other marine structures. Ships collision is also a very important design consideration for ship hulls. Designing structures to resist both accidental and intentional ship impact requires characterization of the impact loading history. Standard design practice relies on simplified methods to determine the impact loads, which typically consider only speed and mass of the vessel. However, ship impact is a complicated non-linear structural dynamic event that depends not just on the size and mass of the vessel, but also local stiffening pattern, location and function of the bulkheads, possible ice-strengthening classification, draft, presence of the bulbous bow, and many other factors. Neglecting these factors can lead to overestimation or underestimation of the loads, depending on a specific scenario. The discrepancies between simplified load estimates and detailed finite element analyses are investigated in this paper.Copyright © 2015 by ASME