SPH MODELLING OF HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL TSUNAMI EFFECTS ON DECK GIRDER BRIDGES

Coastal infrastructure can be damaged by extreme hydrodynamic phenomena such as tsunamis and storm surge. The interaction between the waves and the coastal infrastructure is challenging to characterize due to the infrequent nature and complex physics involved during extreme hydrodynamic events. Physical and numerical simulations play a critical role in generating complementary data to study the highly nonlinear phenomena involved in fluid-structure interaction (FSI) processes. In this presentation, the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method implemented in DualSPHysics is adopted to reproduce data from an experimental program conducted at the Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory (Oregon State University, NHERI experimental facility). Recorded and synthetic data are correlated to assess the efficiency of SPH reproducing tsunami-like flow and its effects on vertical and horizontal components of a deck girder bridge. The bridge model is then adapted to represent a simplified model of bridge without flanges. The quantification of pressure exerted on the vertical direction is relatively similar on both models. On the horizontal direction, the time series of pressure calculated from the simplified model shows a smoother shape form and a peak value 40percent smaller than the one estimated from the original model.