A simulation study on quantifying damage in bridge piers subjected to vehicle collisions

Vehicle collision on bridge piers is no more a rare possibility with crowded city roads, encroached spaces, and lack of recommended margins around piers. An attempt is made through this study to investigate the plasticity induced in a pier due to a colliding vehicle. Responses of several piers with varying geometries are studied by finite element analysis. The piers are subjected to collision loads, static as well as dynamic in nature. The study aims at identifying the areas of damage and roughly estimating the damage sustained by the pier under consideration. A range of results in the form of graphs have been presented. Subroutines capable of handling material nonlinear effects in the static as well as dynamic zones were developed using MATLAB. The programs were validated using ANSYS. Separate results are presented for static and dynamic analysis. The forces considered for static analysis are based on specifications of several countries, while the force-time histories adopted for transient elastoplastic response of the pier are adopted from simulated crash test results. An attempt is made to get a better insight into quantifying damage with plasticity as an indicator.