Numerical Investigation of a Ship Collision With Waterway Embankments

During the last century there has been an increase in frequency of ships colliding with waterway embankments of inland waterways. The increasing occurrence of shipping accidents threatens the safety of freights and the serviceability of existing structures, such as tunnel and bridge abutments which are located near embankments. It is necessary to develop a method enabling prediction of the collision force and the stopping distance of a collision ship. In the related project “Hochdonn” of BAW (Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute, Germany) collision experiments were performed to analyze the impact mechanisms in grounding problems. A 3D FE model using a Coupled Eulerian Lagrangian approach is used to recalculate the collision experiment of BAW with the test ship “Gerda”. The stopping distance and the reaction force that are indicated by the numerical simulation match the field test results very closely. In addition two parametric studies are undertaken to quantify the influences on the collision process from the initial velocity as well as the bow type of the ship.