1983) for instance, a cost increase between 5% and 20% of the whole bridge

cost is accepted depending on the importance of the roadway. The piers, if

placed in deep water, are designed to be rigid, i.e., the total collision energy
must by absorbed by movement or deformation (damage) of the ship.
It is true that collision forces of a ship can reach 34,000-68,000 tons (300-
600 MN), in which case the reasonable design of a rigid pier is impossible,
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but a high proportion of the actual collisions with a proposed bridge would
involve smaller vessels and lower impact velocities. Small vessels up to 5,000
tons displacement, especially when traveling light and without ballast, are
very often involved in pier collisions. For instance, three ships and seven
barges of this kind collided with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, in Florida.
Therefore, a requirement that all outbound light vessels meet some mini-
mum ballast criteria has been suggested in Florida. For such types of col-
lisions, providing an adequate protection is practicable, even for main piers.
Lower piers in bridge approaches of normal design often can withstand the
probable impact forces. This is true especially when the dead load of the
superstructure is considerable.
To reduce the length of the present paper, its main purpose is the actual,
practical design of piers for ship impact. Therefore, the pier protective
devices, the determination of the design ship, and the equivalent statical
load are only briefly discussed.

PIER PROTECTION SYSTEMS

An economic examination of using pier protection devices in lieu of

designing the substructure for impact forces should be done with an analysis
based on realistic data, otherwise the conclusions will be wrong. One should
always remember that more data do not necessarily mean more accuracy.
In choosing the best-suited pier protection devices, a well-organized de-
cision process must be followed. This process is based on current and ex-
pected vessel traffic, risk and cost analysis, safety, constructability of the
protective system, and its environmental impact. Protective systems in gen-
eral may be separated from the pier they protect, either being connected
to river- or seabed, like independent fender systems, dolphins cofferdam
cells, or man-made islands, or floating around the pier anchored by pre-
stressing and interconnecting tendons or chains, producing a shock-absorber
screen to intercept off-course vessels. Another kind of protective system is
connected directly to the pier as a multiframed buffer structure of various
configurations.
All protective systems are means to reduce the consequences of collisions.
By their energy-absorbing capability they help to reduce the energy absorbed
by the ship (actually, the damage) and eventually, if the ship is not com-
pletely stopped, that part of the impact that the pier itself has to absorb.
Fenders and dolphins will in many cases be found completely out of scale
with the energies to be handled. Fender systems function more by guiding
the vessel than directly protecting the pier by its energy absorption. Ana-
lytical techniques to design fender systems and dolphins can be found in
papers by Jiang and Jamava (1983) and Heins (1983) and in the book by
Derucher and Heins (1978).
Cofferdam cells consisting of circular sheet piling filled with gravel and
braced by a top slab may form efficient and relatively inexpensive protection,
provided a firm bottom is available at reasonable depth.
For many shallow-water bridge piers man-made islands around the pier
2152

J. Struct. Eng. 1992.118:2151-2167.