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Z. Kamaitis
To cite this article: Z. Kamaitis (1997) VEHICLE ACCIDENTAL IMPACTS ON BRIDGES, Statyba,
3:12, 20-27, DOI: 10.1080/13921525.1997.10531363
Z. Kamaitis
of passing trains leading to severe consequences. During the 1985-96 period, a series of impacts by
However, very little research has been carried out on vehicles on highway bridges was recorded. It can be
this subject. A few references [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7] dealing seen in Fig 1 and 2 of some serious accidents in Vil-
with vehicle impact on bridges are known. nius regarding vehicle/bridge collisions [5].
The problem of vehicle/bridge collision is closely
related to progressively increasing traffic density as
well as size and weight of vehicles. Vehicle impact
loads under the bridges are not considered in the de-
sign of bridge superstructures and piers. Many
bridges built more than 20-30 years ago have inade-
quate circulation clearances causing the safety and
~
circulation problems of old bridges. In addition to
bridge damage, vehicle/bridge collisions may result in
loss of human lives and serious environment damage.
In Lithuania many bridges over roads are dam-
t;>'?:J;iJ.1 "" ~
aged due to substandard headroom and abnormal
traffic roads, despite warning circular signs. It seems
that the counter-measures actually used in high risk
bridges are not effective and sufficient. Thereby it is
necessary to analyse the causes of vehicular collisions
Fig 1. Scheme of fractured span structure of reinforced
and to determine which structures are particularly at
concrete viaduct: 1 - place of impact; 2 - longitudinal crack
risk. (width up to 70 mm); 3 - diagonal cracks (width up to
The following two main questions have to be 1 mm); 4 - place of disrupture of stirrups; 5 - spalls of con-
considered: crete; 6 - spalls of concrete cover
* how to determine the value and direction of im-
pact loads as well as the area and location of The first example (Fig 1) concerns the viaduct
load application needed to be considered in ac- with a simple supported superstructure consists of 18
cidental design situations; pretensioned concrete T beams spanning 33 m. The
* how to assess the collision risk, the causes and traffic intensity here is one of the highest in Vilnius.
consequences of accidents of existing bridges An excavator transported on a trailer hit the edge
and which necessary safety measures have to be beam of the viaduct. The accident resulted in the
taken. spalling of concrete from the bottom flange and for-
mation of a number of diagonal cracks. This damage
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was also altributed to shear at the connection be- The bridges were repaired. Unfortunately, the
tween the web and the top slab of the beam, as well as bridge superstructures were damaged again by trans-
to the rupture of some vertical stirrups. In all beams porting excavators whose boom was too high to pas
the spall of wncrclc with or without an exposure of under the bridge. The accidents of such sort continue
reinforcing hars is observed. to occur despite the warning signs on the bridges lim-
A similar impact on another reinforced concrete iting the maximum vehicle size.
bridge deck spanning 20 m over the street resulted in Also, as a result of the vehicle impact, the col-
concrete crushing at the bottom tlangc of the edge lapse of a reinforced concrete column of bridge pier
beam and breakage of some stirrups and longitudinal (Fig 2,b) and the lateral displacement and consider-
steel bars (Fig 2,a ). able deformation of the main beam of the suspension
steel footbridge can be mentioned (Fig 2,c).
a
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b c
Fig 2. Collision damage of reinforced concrete edge beam (a) and pier column
(b) of highway viaduct. and of main beam of the suspension steel footbridge (c)
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Rating
10 0 -<;> oo om- o o o -o-o
9 oo --o ------1
7 0
- -
5 H
0
3 0
1
o - 0-t-------~ H, m
0 . _ _ o - - o - oo----------~
4.0 5.0 6.0
Fig 3. Relationship between intensity of damages of viaduct superstructures and height of highway clearance
In 19961in Alytus due to a truck loaded with logs 0 - destruction of structures and dangerous defects
collision with railway bridge superstructure the lateral (rupture of main reinforcement, crushing of con-
displacement of deck beams observed was of 0. 7 m crete, excessive deflections or displacements of
The risk of derailment of passing trains was very high. the structure) leading to global failure of struc-
The displacement of railway was recorded in time tural members and as a result closure of traffic
and an accident was avoided. circulation;
Fortunately, in the above-mentioned cases no 1 - serious defects (crushing of concrete, severe
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human deaths were involved, but sometimes large cracking, excessive deformations or rupture of
economic losses due to repair of structures as well as some reinforcement bars) referring to the global
the interruption of traffic circulation take place. Our behaviour of the individual structural members or
investigations show that many bridges over roads and the bridge as a whole;
streets in Lithuania are damaged due to impact by 3 - punching failure and excessive spalling of con-
tractor trailers or their loads. Most existing bridges crete, single cracks, excessive deformations of
do not fulfil the modern requirements to the vertical longitudinal reinforcement bars or stirrups in the
clearance. zone of impact;
The main consequences of vehicle/bridge colli- 5 - excessive spalling of concrete cover in the impact
sion are: area;
* damage to the bridge (the cost of destroyed 7 - local damage of a concrete cover or spalling of
parts of the bridge); concrete edges;
* damage to vehicles and to goods carried by the 9 - small local defects (signs or tracks of mechanical
vehicle; impacts;
* injuries and loss of human lives; 10 - undamaged.
*repair/replacement costs including cost of trans- The relationship between the size of vertical
port circulation reorganisation during the bridge clearance under the bridge and intensity of damages
repair period; is shown in Fig 3. It can be seen that the intensity of
* business and social losses due to disruption of damages is directly proportional to the vertical clear-
traffic circulation; ance under the bridges.
* damage to the environment (for example, spill-
ing of oil products or other chemicals etc ). 3. Vehicle impact forces
A wide range of failures from superficial damage Bridge design standards give values and combi-
to disaster is possible. With regard to impact load, nations for various live and dead loads which have to
local and global effects on bridge structures are to be be considered when evaluating load carrying capacity
distinguished. The local behaviour refers to influ- and serviceability of structures. The special-purpose
ences in the impact zone, the global effects describe vehicles, such as crane vehicles, tractor trailers, trucks
the behaviour of individual structural member or the and others, transporting abnormal or heavy loads,
structure as a whole. Criteria used in our investiga- may exceed the standard loads as well as the vertical
tions for the assessment of bridge collision damages or horizontal clearances under bridges. New types of
are divided into classes: vehicles may appear. The impact forces on a bridge
during collision depend on such parameters as vehicle
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type, size, mass, and speed as well as the circum- Normally the duration of action of the maximum
stances of the accident (eccentricity of impact, size force in vehicle/bridge collision is very brief. There-
and shape of structures etc). It seems that the fore, it can be written from (1) and (2) that average
amount of reinforcement and the bar spacing play a impact force:
significant role in reinforced concrete damage resis- Fm =mlgrv 0 (l+vlv 0 ). (3)
tance. The accident circumstances are usually not
For concrete structures (concrete to steel im-
known sufficiently well. In case of eccentric impact,
pact) vlv 0 = 0.35-0.15; for steel structures (steel to
for example, a significant part of the collision energy
steel impact) vI v 0 = 0.6-0.4.
will be consumed in friction and rotating of the vehi-
cle. Thereby, the determination of the impact load on The collision impact forces depend on the de-
a bridge during the vehicular collision accidents is formability of both the vehicle and the part of struc-
very complicated. ture directly affected as well as on the direction of
The impact impulse can be calculated as (Fig 4): impact. The analysis of a vehicle collision accident
can also be based on the assumption that kinetic en-
'
S =I F(t)dt = FmT, (1) ergy will be transformed into plastic deformation of
0
the vehicle as well as structural damage deformation
of the bridge
where F(t) is impact force.
"t ~
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2 (4)
112(ml g)v =I F1(u)du+ I F2(u)du.
F(t)
0 0
a b
F1 (u)
u u
Fig 5. Impact force versus deformation of vehicle (a) and bridge structure (b)
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In the floating debris, ice, shipping, and traf- to local impact can lead to the subsequent collapse of
fic/bridge collision analysis the impact force model neighbouring structural elements or the bridge as a
was proposed [9]: whole. The collapse can be prevented if the structural
F(t)=~mv5 Is), (6) system has the ability to redistribute the forces
quickly and to sustain the additional stresses.
where s equals the stopping distance, and c is the
factor accounting the variation of bridge stiffness and 4. Bridge clearances
relative angle of impact. The horizontal and vertical clearances under the
The real impact loads of vehicles on the bridges bridges have to ensure that circulation span is suffi-
can also be calculated from the loads required to de- cient to provide safe transport passage under normal
form the structural elements observed in the dam- conditions. In any bridge over the roadway, the
aged structures. But it is not easy to do that due to higher the superstructure up in the air or the larger
complexity of calculation scheme. the distance between the piers, the greater the cost.
The dynamic effects of moving traffic loads dur- There is a constant effort to keep a structure as low
ing collision is not considered in many design stan- as possible. To avoid a high risk of vehicles collision,
dards. Ref [7] indicates the magnitude of horizontal the clearance of the circulation should be as high and
force needed for verifying the local strength of the large as can be technically and economically justified.
bridge piers (Table). The impact force is applied at
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n Two approaches may be applied to assess the
probability of failure of existing structures:
* the empirical approach based on the vehi-
12 cle/bridge accident statistics;
* the probability approach based on probability
8 distributions for different factors have to be in-
volved in analysis.
The probability of damage of the bridge struc-
4
tures due to vehicle collision is complicated and is a
function of the vehicle type, mass, speed, direction as
H. m well as the strength and stiffness characteristics of the
5.0 6.0
bridge structures. The most important factors affect-
Fig 6. Histogram of headroom distribution of ing the risk evaluation of collision are:
all Vilnius bridges
*type of bridge (highway, pedestrian, railroad);
Data of vertical clearance measurements in all
* traffic density and speed under and over the
bridge, loading conditions in goods, number of
Vilnius bridges over the streets are shown in Fig 6. It
passengers;
can be seen that the scatter in the vertical dimensions
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a b
centerlines of traffic circulation
~ig 7. ~eom~trical.pr~ba~ility of collision for piers (a) and deck (b): 1- vehicle track distribution
- vehicle height d1Stnbut10n; 3 - vehicle/pier collision zone; 4 - vehicle/deck collision zone '
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tracks and the width of collision zone which is equal risk that provides the minimum sum of prevention or
to the breadth of vehicle plus breadth of the pier. For protection cost and that of collision accident.
bridge deck the collision zone is related to the distri-
bution of height of vehicles and bridge clearance as 6. Prevention measures
well as the number of circulation lanes under the Vehicle collision accidents to bridge structures
bridge. are relatively rare. Therefore the design of a bridge
Geometrical probability of vehicle/bridge colli- structures to withstand the vehicles impact is not en-
SIOn visaged in many current design codes and specifica-
(7) tions.
Collision risk reduction can be achieved by the
where P( Gb} is the geometrical probability related to
following specific protective measures:
the actual part of a pier or deck of a bridge; P( Gv} is * traffic regulation measures
the geometrical probability of vehicle dimensions * bridge protection measures
belonging to a certain class (including illegal height * introduction of bridge design codes.
vehicles and swinging up effect of moving vehicles). Traffic regulation measures consist of installa-
The lateral distribution of vehicle tracks as well tion of passage limitation signs for maximum vehicle
as the distribution of height of clearance and that of size and speed. Warning circulation signs are pro-
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vehicles can be approximated with normal distribu- vided directly on the bridge structure or at the sides
tion. The parameters of distribution may be obtained of the road. A series of nightmarks on the sub- and
from direct observations. It is necessary to stress that superstructures provides the visual fluorescent mes-
estimates of failure probability on the basis of actual sage in the dark. Although the drivers probably ob-
collisions are difficult due to lack of sufficient data. serve the warning signs, the accidents continue to
The failure probability related to the users occur.
(vehicles, trains, passengers, pedestrians) passing the The gates located at some distance from a bridge
bridge are used as visual and audible warning to drivers. The
(8) coloured gates may be constructed of portal frames
with horizontal or vertical metal, timber or plastic
where P( Pc} is probability of vehicle/bridge collision;
suspended elements. In modern traffic circulation
P( Ce) is probability of train, vehicle or pedestrians system the presence of abnormal vehicles is detected
on a bridge during the impact time. by lasers or radars.
The most dangerous event will be for railway The bridge protection system is installed to pre-
bridges where due to impact the derailment may oc- vent, redirect or reduce the impact loads on the
cur with serious consequences. On the other hand, bridge sub- and superstructures. In high risk bridges,
the bridges over the same road have to be analysed in piers can be protected by providing reinforced con-
different accidental design situations. For example, crete or metal barrier beams or guard rails. They are
footbridges are generally much more sensitive to col- erected along the road to separate the roadway from
lision forces than road bridges. Failure consequences piers or abutments as well as the opposite circulation
of railway bridges may involve large loss of lives, envi- directions.
ronment pollution or significant economic losses for The standards normally prescribe the clearance
the society. The higher clearances for those bridges profiles under the structures for highway and railway
have to be envisaged. Vehicle/bridge collision is an bridges as function of the class of road or density of
accidental design scenario and the reduced level of road traffic. Special demands for passage should be
safety against failure as general is acceptable. Local- envisaged on special transporters carrying the ab-
ised damage of structures can be accepted that it will normal cargoes (containers, engineering plants etc ).
not cause the failure of the whole structure. In high collision risk bridges, the collision actions
In the vehicle/bridge collision risk analysis, the should be considered for the structural design where
cost assessment due to accident has to be considered. appropriate traffic regulation and bridge protection
In many cases it is not economically feasible to design measures are not provided.
and built the bridge with very strict requirements of The benefits of added protection take the form
safety level. The objective is to choose the level of of reduction of failure probability and of losses re-
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suiting from failure. It seems that the cost of protec- 9. T.E. Fenske, C.J. Apelt, AC. Parola. Debris Forces an
Impact on Highway Bridges // IABSE Symposium. Ex-
tive measures is always less than future losses due to tending the Lifespan of Structures, San Francisko:
traffic accidents. 1995, p. 1017-1022.
10. Eurocode 1. Part 3: Traffic Loads on Bridges. ENV
7. Conclusions 1991-3:1995, 130 p.
Many existing bridges over roads and streets do Iteikta 1997 07 01
not fulfil the requirements of the horizontal and es-
pecially vertical clearances and many new bridges AUTOMOBll.Il) ATSITIKTINIAI SMUGIAI l TILTUS
sometimes economy does not allow full compliance
Z. Kamaitis
either. The number of collision accidents has been
recorded on many sites of Lithuania as well as in Santrauka
other countries involving sometimes large economic Viadukus daznai pazeidzia po jais vaziuojantis ne-
losses due to repair costs as well as indirectly to circu- gabaritinis transportas. To pridastis yra nuolat didejantys
transporto priemoni4 ir jomis vdam4 krovini4 svoriai ir
lation restrictions.
gabaritai bei nepakankami viaduk4 konstrukcij4 artumo
The circulation conditions in the vicinity of dif- gabaritai. Straipsnyje pateikti konkretils automobili4 net-
ferent bridge sites should be studied and the vehicle inkamo vaziavimo po viadukais pavyzdziai (1 ir 2 pav.).
accident data collected. The new Lithuanian Code Sudarytas viaduk4 konstrukcij4 biikles reitingas, naudotas
Vilniaus statini4 biiklei vertinti (3 pav.).
"Design of bridges" (being prepared at present) has
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