ABSTRACT
Collision accidents between bridge girders and ship superstructures have increased significantly in the past decades. However, bridge girders, which typically constructed with hat-stiffened panels, have not been well designed against ship collisions. This paper aims to investigate bridge girder response under ship collision loads through a series of drop weight tests on scaled hat-stiffened panels. Four hat-stiffened panel specimens, which represent a 1:4 scale to full-scale steel bridge girder panels, are designed and assembled. Experimental tests are conducted for the specimens under the drop weight impact of a hemisphere indenter. The effect of impact energy is also investigated by varying the drop height of the indenter. Finite element models are also developed for the indenter and the scaled stiffened panels. The fidelity of the numerical models is validated with the test results.
