Flexible guided anti-collision device for bridge pier protection against ship collision: Numerical simulation and ship collision field test

The flexible guided anti-collision device (FGAD) can prolong the impact time between ship and pier, so that the ship has enough time and space to turn and deviate from the pier. In this way, the ship can retain most of the kinetic energy, and the impact force on the pier can be greatly reduced. Both of ship and pier can be protected by the FGAD. In this paper, the dynamic response and the energy-dissipation capacity of FGAD are firstly studied by the numerical simulation of ship-bridge collision process. The results show that the FGAD can effectively turn the ship's course, and the concentrated force of collision is transformed into the distributed force, which significantly reduces the energy conversion and impact force. Then, an actual ship collision field test is carried out to investigate the effectiveness of the FGAD for reducing the impact force on the pier and turning the navigation direction of ship. The test results show that the FGAD can turn the ship's course with a little change of the ship speed after the collision. Most of the kinetic energy does not participate in the energy exchange and the impact force on the pier is significantly reduced. The FGAD realizes the design idea of protecting both the bridge and the ship. The application of engineering also confirms the effectiveness and reliability of the FGAD.