Flume Experiments and Numerical Simulation of a Barge Collision with a Bridge Pier Based on Fluid–Structure Interaction

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript ID: sustainability-2200055

Title: Flume experiments and numerical simulation of barge collision with bridge pier based on fluid-structure interaction

 

In this research, the FSI and FE methods were used in combination to simulate a ship–bridge collision process. The results are verified successfully. The authors should address the following comments before the final decision:

 

 

·         Abbreviations should be defined in the text too.

·         The literature review is weak. You can argue about more FSI simulation methods. For example, immersed boundary method is another Lagrangian-Eulerian approach used for FSI simulations. Referring to the following recent papers will be helpful in this regard:  

A Review on Contact and Collision Methods for Multi-body Hydrodynamic problems in Complex Flows, Communications in Computational Physics, 32(4), 899–950, 2022.

Fluid-structure interaction for the flexible filament's propulsion hanging in the free stream, Journal of Molecular Liquids, 323, 2021, 114941.

·         The novelty of the research is not clear. Give more details. Maybe because of the weak literature review.

·         What is the reason for choosing “LS-DYNA” for this simulation?

·         According to the experimental tests, has the uncertainty analysis been done?

·         Has the repeatability of the experiments been checked?

·         It is necessary to explain the characteristics of the test equipment in more detail.

 

·         Enrich the abstract section with more quantitative data from the research.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The original manuscript addressed the barge collisions with bridge pier in which fluid-structure interaction was considered. The numerical model was verified by experiments and the simulated collision results was discussed in detail. However, there are several suggestions which have to be considered:

1. Page 7, line 242-243: The position of the mud-line and the constraint conditions of the pile cap and pile were not given. The author should provide a reasonable explanation for which the bridge pier was fixed in all directions at its foundation without considering the pier-soil interactions.

2. Some representative flow states during the barge collision process with bridge pier should be provided especially when Secondary peaks of the impact force appeared.

3. Page 12, figure 11: The pier displacements in collisions were too large and the maximum value even reached 0.9m. That would be impossible for the bridge pier in practical cases.

4. Page 18, Section 4: The values of the primary peak impact forces given by the FSI method and AM method showed to be basically close. Usually, the primary peak impact force is used as the reference for the bridge structure design in barge collisions. Therefore, the author should clarify the importance of the multiple peaks caused by fluid-structure interactions in practical applications.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript discusses the response of bridge piers subject to barge collision. It develops a detailed finite element model, validated by experiments, to simulate collision scenarios. It also investigates the effects of input data on bridge response, including the effects of barge mass and speed and collision angle and location. The manuscript is well-written, and my overall assessment is positive. Below, I only have a few minor comments.

1- Section 2.1, It would be helpful to discuss scaling effects in model validation (e.g., Does everything scale up linearly?) For example, the slenderness ratio ½ of the cylinder seems large for a bridge pier.

2- Line 177, Does the model consider bridge specimen nonlinear behavior? The same question applies to bridge piers.

3- Table 5, Why is the maximum impact force used for comparing the results? For example, if the goal is to predict collision damage, the comparing quantity should be a good proxy for damage.

4- Figure 4, Could you explain the boundary conditions of deck supports and pile-soil interaction?

5- Section 3.2. It would be beneficial to summarize the results of the parametric study by a regression model that relates some bridge response quantities or damage measures to the studied variables.

*** a few typos ***

Line 114, repeated “To” at the beginning of the paragraph.

Line 123, hallow --> hollow?

 

Line 318, form --> from?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

All the comments are addressed.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have revised the manuscript according to the reviewer's comments.