Coastal Highway Route E39

The Coastal Highway Route E39 runs from Kristiansand in the south to Trondheim in the north, and is approximately 1100 km long. The aim of the project is to build an improved Route E39, which will reduce travel time by half. The reduction in travel time will be achieved by replacing ferries with floating bridges and tunnels. Project video: Norway's $47BN Coastal Highway | The B1M

Ship-bridge collisions

Bridge structures are under the threat of accidental ship collisions. Potentially, ship with large kinetic energy may cause serious damages to the bridge structures should a collision accident occur. Design methods and guidelines for floating bridges and tunnels against accidental ship colllisionsbut are also lacking. This study aims to systematicly analyze ship collision reponse of floating bridges and tunnels, including local and global bridge behaviours. Both simplified and advanced design methods will also be developed.

Floating bridge respoonse under environmental loadings

Floating bridges across wide and deep fjords are subjected to wind, wave, and current loadings. Due to the flexible nature of these floating installations, the dynamic response of floating bridges under such loadings can be significant. The research team has an ongoing investigation on the dynamic response of floating bridges and tunnels under extream environmental conditions.

Ship impact with floating offshore wind turbines

An increasing number of floating offshore wind turbine (FWOT) concepts have been proposed and designed in recent years. FOWTs are under the threat of accidental collisions from supply vessels and passing ships.

Ship collision can induce local damage in the concrete or steel floaters which may further leads to flooding in the floater and sinking of the whole wind turbine. Apart from the possible local damage in the floater, the global response of the wind turbine under ship collisions can also be significant. The FOWTs may endure failure in the mooring lines or even overturing of the whole structure.

The research team at UiS has been conducting numerical simulations and scaled test to unveil the behaviour of FOWTs under accidental ship collisions. Both design optimizations and retroffting techbniques are being proposed to ensure the safety of FOWTs.

Impact response of steel and concrete structures

Bridges and offshore structures are under accidental impacts from vehicles and vessels. Such accidents may either occur during earthquake or tsunami inundations or due to mechianical failures and human operating errors. The impact-induced damage in the steel and concrete structures should be evaluated.

Pendulum impact tests of floating and subsea structures

Structural impact and dynamics lab at UiS has a pendulum impact test facility which can perform impact test for various structural components.

Drop object and impact of floating and subsea structures

The dropped object assessment is an important aspect for subsea engineering. The dropped object could be containers, drilling equipment or subsea pipeline handling frame (PHF) et.al. The interaction between pipeline and soil or rock dump increases the complexity of such problem. The structural damage and energy dissipation distribution in the drop object and the pipeline is of great interests.
Trawl gear impact assessment is also an important engineering aspect for subsea pipelines. The trawl gear of fishing boats can have various impact scenarios with the subsea pipelines. The interaction between pipeline and soil or rock dump increases the complexity of such problems. Energy dissipation distributions in coating, soil and structure are investigated.

Structural health monitoring and damage identification

Many researches have been conducted to estimate ship impact loads on bridges and offshore structures. However, studies on assessing bridge conditions after a ship impact accident are very limited. Current practice basically uses visual inspections for damage identification, which requires experienced inspection engineers and can be difficult depending on site conditions. Therefore it is necessary to develop methods for efficient, quantitative and reliable assessment of structures after ship colliison. This study explores the feasibility of using vibration measurements to quickly detect bridge conditions after a vessel impact.