Modeling Tsunami Induced Debris Impacts on Bridge Structures using the Material Point Method

Two parametric studies have been conducted in this study. The first is aimed at understanding the influence of the contact area and the eccentricity of impact on the impact forces. The results show that the effect of these two factors are reduced with an increase in longitudinal length of the solid object. The second part of the study tries to evaluate the difference between tsunami driven debris impact loads and in-air debris impact loads. The results indicate that tsunami driven debris impacts tend to be larger by upto 35% compared to only in-air impact forces calculated using empirical equations.