To reliably assess the impact force and pier response due to barge impact， a de-tailed numerical model of barge-pier impact is developed by ANSYS/LS-DYNA.Shell ele-ment are utilized to model steel outer plates while internal trusses are modelled by beam ele-ments.The elastic-plastic material model is employed to model the outer shell and internaltruss of the barge bow.Reinforce the pier and simulate the concrete with nonlinear materialsto more realistically reflect the material properties.A supported masson pier top which re-presents the mass from the superstructure is modelled.Taking inland ships as an example，parametric studies are carried out to investigate the effects of pier material， barge massesand impact velocities on impact force and response of single pier.The results demonstratethat the peak impact force and impact time obtained by the rigid and elastic pier assumptionsare too large， and the bigger the impact velocity， the bigger the gap.The nonlinearity of con-crete materials has a great influence on the simulation of barge impact.Increasing the barge mass and impact velocity can increase the peak impact force and collision duration， while theimpact velocity has a significant impact on the peak impact force， and the collision durationdepends mainly on the barge mass.