Hydrodynamic Characteristics at Intersection Areas of Ship and Bridge Pier with Skew Bridge

Abstract

Ships sailing in the area of a bridge are vulnerable to the influence of complex water flow, due to the complex flow pattern around the bridge pier. Ships often crash into bridge piers, leading to serious economic losses and threating personal safety. Based on the common forms of piers of skew bridges, the hydrodynamic problems encountered during ship–bridge interactions in the area of a skew bridge were studied using particle image velocimetry-based flume testing, physical model testing, and numerical simulation. The influence of the flow angle of attack of a round-ended pier on the force and center of gravity of a ship moving on both sides of a pier is discussed under various ship–bridge transverse spacings. The results show that as a ship passes through the bridge area, the bow roll moment exhibits three peak values: ‘positive’, ‘negative’, and ‘positive’, and the curve of the center of gravity position forms the shape of a ‘straw hat’. With an increase in the flow angle of attack of the pier, the negative peak value and the second positive peak value of the bow roll moment of the ship passing through the back flow side of the pier become greater than those on the upstream side. Moreover, the ship’s navigation attitude is more unstable compared to that upstream, and the ship is at risk of colliding with the pier and sweeping. The width of the restricted water area, determined by the hydrodynamic action between the ship and bridge in the skew bridge area, is the same as that determined by the critical lateral velocity. For the ship class referred to in this study, the current code can also be used in channel design, to safeguard ship and personal safety with piers with a large flow angle of attack.

Hydrodynamic Interactions between Ships in a Fleet

“…Harada et al [12] studied the resonance of two objects in a flow field by means of the potential flow method and the viscous flow method, respectively, and obtained the limits of environmental conditions for side-by-side offloading operations. Li et al [13] used PIV flume tests, physical modeling tests of ship-bridge intersections, and numerical simulations to investigate the effect of different flow attack angles of roundend piers on moving ships, which focus on the moment and the ship's motion attitude. Vasudevan et al [14] investigated the hydrodynamic interaction forces between a ship in a moored condition and a passing ship by means of the CFD method, and the results show that the longitudinal and transverse forces on a moored ship are negligible when the spacing is greater than three times the width of the ship.…”