A theoretical investigation of ship ice resistance in waters covered with ice floes

Accurate prediction of ship resistance in ice covered waters is important for ice-going ships. In this paper the resistance of a ship moving in waters covered with small ice floes is investigated. A simplified collision process is applied to model the ship-ice collision process such that the ship resistance can be theoretically determined with hydrodynamic interaction taken into consideration. Thin-ship approximation leads to simple formula predicting that ship resistance coefficient is proportional to squared ship velocity, beam-to-length ratio, ice thickness-to length ratio and sea ice concentration. These conclusions are in perfect agreement with experimental test results. This in turn confirms the validity of the theory proposed in this paper.