Study on River Ice Load Characteristics Based on Field Measurements

Ice load is the main threat to ships sailing in the ice area. In order to determine the river ice load characteristics providing for the ice breaking operation of icebreakers, full-scale measurements of the ice load on the hull structure were carried out. A distributed strain test system was installed on the light icebreaker. Gauges were located on the starboard waterline of the bow at the rib web, and the structural deformation was measured with the twin-chip shear strain method. A numerical model of the ship's bow was established with the finite element method and the ice load in six subregions of the monitoring area was identified with the influence coefficient matrix method. Experimental results show that the ice load on the hull structure was mainly in the form of a triangle and with single peak. Statistical results show that the peak value of river ice load obeys Weibull distribution. In addition, loading mode and cycle of the river ice is relatively similar to that of sea ice, but the peak value of river ice load is slightly higher than sea ice with the same thickness. © 2022, Editorial Office of Ship Building of China. All right reserved.