ABSTRACT
Reinforce concrete (RC) structures have been used to construct various types of offshore structures in the past decades. Reinforce concrete has many advantages such as high strength, relatively low cost, and easy maintenance. Therefore, reinforced concrete has been used to construct the supporting structures of offshore platforms, wind turbines, and floating bridges. Nonetheless, offshore reinforced concrete structures are under the threat of collision loads from service and passing ships. Since offshore reinforced concrete structures are typically thin-walled structures, one major issue is the punching shear damage of such structures under ship collision loads. Recently, ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) has been increasingly used for onshore structures. UHPC has demonstrated higher impact resistance than ordinary reinforced concrete. However, research on UHPC structures under ship collision loads has seldom been conducted. In this paper, numerical simulations of ship collision with thin-walled UHPC structures are conducted using detailed finite element models. The application of different UHPC material models on ship collision simulations is discussed. The response of UHPC and normal RC structures are also compared. It is found that with calibrated parameters, the CSCM material model in LS-DYNA can be used for modelling UHPC in ship collision simulations. The results show that using UHPC material can effectively increase the ship collision resistance of offshore structures compared with ordinary reinforced concrete.
