Numerical investigations of a prestressed pontoon wall subjected to ship collision loads

Abstract

The paper presents a numerical investigation of the ship collision response for a floating pontoon. High fidelity finite element models of a container ship bow and a prestressed concrete pontoon wall are established. The effect of prestressing on the collision resistance of the pontoon is discussed. Integrated numerical simulations are conducted to study the structural deformation and energy absorption of the striking ship and the struck pontoon. The results are compared with the structural responses when a rigid ship collides with a deformable pontoon and a deformable ship collides against a rigid pontoon. Parametric studies are also carried out to investigate the effect of the pontoon wall thickness and the strength and dimension of the ship bulb. A dynamic punching shear check procedure that can be used in the preliminary design phase is proposed.