| KEYWORD |
Area Engineering
Over-height impact on bridges in Italy: strategies for prevention, protection, and repair of bridge girders
keywords COLLISION PROTECTION, IMPACT RESPONSE, OVER-HEIGHT TRUCK
Reference persons GIAN PAOLO CIMELLARO
External reference persons Part of the thesis will be developed in abroad in collaboration with the City College of New York.
Description Due to increased traffic volumes and incidence of impact damaged to bridge structures, there is a pressing need to develop a collision protection system for highway bridges against over-height truck impact. In this study, a linear elastic model for the impact response of bottom face sheet-rigidly supported sandwich structures including shear-off effect is developed. The current codes and specifications, however, lack the information necessary to estimate the impact forces that the bridge girders can experience during an over-height collision. To address this gap, a detailed investigation is conducted in the current study to (i) characterize the loading demand expected from various impacting objects, (ii) determine the range and variability of impact-induced forces (as a function of the velocity and size of the impacting objects), and (iii) develop a set of equations to predict the impact forces from over- height collisions into bridge superstructures. For this purpose, high-fidelity finite-element (FE) models are developed, covering four individual objects, i.e., concrete pipe, steel tank, PVC pipe, and wooden box container, in addition to a tractor-semitrailer.
Required skills English language and software skills with FEM models (LS-DYNA, ANSYS)
Notes Thesis in New York City
Deadline 09/01/2025
PROPONI LA TUA CANDIDATURA