Quarter Scale Collision Tolerant Pile Concepts: Peripheral and Central Stay

Two 1/4 scale (approximately 12 ft. tall) Collision Tolerant Pile Structure (CTPS) designs were developed for the deployment of navigational aids in shallow water. The CTPS concept consists of the marker/light mounted on a single pile hinged just above the mud line. The two systems considered here are a peripheral stay, central universal joint hinge concept and a central stay concept. Testing included hinge restoring moment-angle tests, barge collision experiments, and in situ measurement of the response to wave motion. Field experiments demonstrated that the pile sustains negligible damage during barge collisions, recovery is prompt, and pile motion in large waves is very small. Experiment results were compared with a 2-dimensional computer simulation of the pile dynamics with good agreement.