Drop Test Simulation of Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GFRP) Modular Pontoon Unit

The main objective of the research was to investigate the structural response of the Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic modular pontoon unit due to the impact load during the drop test. The impact load was defined as the drop phenomena that might be occurred while GFRP modular pontoon unit is being packaged, stacked and transported. Numerical simulation was performed using nonlinear finite element method to obtain the response characteristics. The maximum effective (Von Mises) stress of the GFRP modular pontoon unit was estimated as a design consideration for the structure strength. The external dynamics parameter which includes as the drop orientation and drop velocity which is equivalent to the drop height is being considered on the simulation analysis. According to the simulation result, it can be found that the maximum effective stress is occurred on the corner side drop position. The magnitude of maximum effective stress is larger than the yield strength of the GRFP material. Therefore the plastic deformation is observed on the corner side of the modular pontoon unit. The results of simulation analysis present that the most vulnerable drop position is the corner side position. It is recommended that the corner side of the modular pontoon unit is the important part for design improvement to increase the structure reliability during the drop phenomena.