A review on the assessment methods of bridge against ship collision

In the past several decades, many approaches for assessing the impact load, dynamic response and safety of bridge against ship collision have been developed. The purpose of the present paper is to systematically review the relative experiments, finite element (FE) simulations and simplified analytical methods for practice application and further research. The quasi-static crushing test and impact experiments of full and reduce-scale models of ship bow and bridge are introduced firstly. The theoretical calculation formulae of ship impact force in the specifications and publications are discussed from the view point of the bridge anti-collision design. In the numerical simulations with simplified and high-resolution FE models, various influences parameters on the impact load, deformation and failure modes of bridge are presented, including the mass, angle, velocity, and type of the striking ships. The effects of geometric range, boundary condition, element type, material properties on the interaction between the ship and bridge are also illustrated. The conclusions in the experiments and numerical simulations are provided that might be useful for revising the existing assessment method of ship impact load in the specifications to improve the accuracy of results in the future, such as the influence of ship type, dynamic amplification effect.