Study of demands resulting from transverse impact of high mass, low velocity debris

Abstract

Debris impact forces generated during floods, tsunamis, and hurricane storm surges can contribute to severe structural damage. Proper estimation of debris impact forces is critical to design the structures to resist typical water-borne debris. In previous work, the force demands from axial debris impact were experimentally and analytically assessed. This study characterizes the impact force demands generated during transverse debris impact on structures and develops simplified models that can estimate impact force and duration accurately. An experimental study was conducted on a full-scale standard shipping container, steel tube, and solid bar subjected to transverse impact. Numerical models of the transverse members are also developed to evaluate the impact demands during relatively high impact velocities. Simplified analytical models are developed and validated with data from impact experiments and simulated results. The simplified models to predict impact demands from debris under both elastic and inelastic responses are shown to be quite accurate. Moreover, the results show that impact forces estimated by current design guidelines are not accurate.