Validation and implementation of bridge design specifications for barge impact loading.

Details

• Creators:
  Consolazio, Gary R. ; Getter, Daniel J. ; Kantrales, George C.
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Florida. Dept. of Civil and Coastal Engineering
• Corporate Contributors:
  Florida. Dept. of Transportation
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Highway bridges
  • Bridge design
  • Specifications
  • Maritime accidents
  • Barges
  • Risk assessment
  • Finite element method
  • Impact loads
  • Steel
  • Strain measurement
• Publication/ Report Number:
  BDK75-977-31 ; UF Project No. 00087294
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Florida
• Corporate Publisher:
  University of Florida. Dept. of Civil and Coastal Engineering
• Abstract:
  Since 1991 in the United States, the design of highway bridges to resist collisions by errant waterway vessels has been carried out ; in accordance with design provisions published by AASHTO. These provisions have remained largely unchanged for more than 20 years, ; while numerous studies in recent years—conducted by researchers at the University of Florida (UF) and the Florida Department of ; Transportation (FDOT)—have greatly improved upon the analysis procedures in the AASHTO provisions. The focus of the work ; discussed in this report was the experimental validation of an improved UF/FDOT barge impact load-prediction model and the ; implementation of numerous other UF/FDOT procedures into a comprehensive risk assessment methodology that can be readily adopted ; for use in bridge design. To validate the UF/FDOT barge impact load model, two series of impact experiments were conducted, in which ; reduced-scale replicas of a typical barge bow were impacted by a high-energy impact pendulum to produce large-scale barge deformations. ; In support of the validation effort, a material testing program was carried out in order to characterize the strain rate-sensitive properties of ; steel materials from which the reduced-scale barge specimens were fabricated. Steel specimens were tested in uniaxial tension at strain ; rates covering seven orders of magnitude. To conduct high-rate material tests, a novel test apparatus was designed and employed that used ; an impact pendulum to impart the required energy. Data from the material testing program were used to develop constitutive models that ; were used in finite element barge impact simulations. Additionally in this study, a revised vessel collision risk assessment methodology ; was developed that incorporates various new UF/FDOT analysis procedures. The complete methodology was demonstrated for two ; real-world bridge cases, and the results were compared to the existing AASHTO risk assessment method. For these two cases, the revised ; procedure was found to predict higher levels of risk than the AASHTO procedure. However, it was also noted that the terms in the current ; AASHTO annual frequency of collapse (AF) expression that are associated with the probability of an impact event occurring may, in fact, ; overpredict this probability. Consequently, potential inaccuracies in these probability-related terms may account for the higher estimates of ; risk produced by the revised procedure.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/27716/dot_27716_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 34.50 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:984c6d54eedf21c25313e946535d397f9292204fed0560f7bd1c973bbafe9cd5