Professor Anil Agrawal, Editor-in-Chief of FABRE’s BER journal, is organizing a symposium on the protection of bridge piers from large ship impacts. FABRE members can join this symposium for free. Please read the following for more information.
The Frances Key Bridge in Baltimore stood for more than half a century until it collapsed when a massive ship it was never designed to withstand collided with it. Ship collision design provisions, established in 1991, well after the bridge was built, suggest that the chance of collision was extremely low, estimated to be around 1/100,000. This risk assessment, which ultimately proved to be overly optimistic, likely contributed to a false sense of security about the bridge’s vulnerability and may have impeded proactive measures to reinforce the structure.
National ship collision provisions have been mostly unchanged since they were published about 35 years old. The guidelines were derived from 1970s experiments focused on protecting the reactors of nuclear-powered ships from collision by other ships. The studies utilized 1:10 scale models and were geared towards ship-to-ship impacts rather than ship-to-bridge collisions. In addition to these substantial limitations, the provisions also failed to consider the scale and impact force generated by modern, significantly larger freighters that are now in operation. Although the Key Bridge was not constructed in accordance with these later-established provisions, its collapse under conditions deemed extremely unlikely by these standards underscores the pressing need for a comprehensive reassessment and possible revision of these guidelines. This is urgently needed to support the extensive, ongoing national efforts dedicated to evaluating and mitigating the risks of vessel collisions with existing bridge infrastructure.
The University Transportation Research Center at the City College of New York (www.utrc2.org) and Engineering Mechanics Committee of the Met Section invite you to register for the one day virtual symposium on protection of Bridge Piers from Large Ship Impact on August 7, 2024 from 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM. The objective of this virtual Symposium is to highlight the current state of protection of piers / towers of long span bridges in navigational waters from large ship impacts and identify current needs and gaps through a virtual workshop session of researchers and practicing engineers at the end of the symposium.
The symposium will be held on Zoom Webinar Platform and is free to attend. Professional Engineers registered in New York State will receive around 6 PDH hours upon confirmation of attendance during each of the presentations during the symposium through an online media / Survey. However, because of limited capacity, online registration is required, and you will be notified at least one week before the symposium about acceptance of your registration and Zoom link to join the symposium. Please use the link below to register for the symposium: https://utrc2.org/content/virtual-symposium-protection-bridge-piers-large-ship-impact
