An energy model for ice crushing in ice-structure impact

When a steel structure meets ice in impact like contact, the ice is being crushed at the location of the contact. In this paper, the energy loss related to the ice crushing is implemented to a contact load model. Then, the effect of energy loss on simulated ice-structure contact load is studied and compared to small scale tests done earlier when the impact load model was developed. The contact load model used is based on the pressure-area relationship and is now further enhanced with crushing energy parameters. Energy required to crush ice in impact has been studied recently. These studies relate the ice destruction energy to the volume or mass of crushed ice. Previously developed model for impact contact of ice and spherical steel surface is modified to include ice crushing energy during impact. After the modification, the impact load is compared with small scale experimental data obtained in two test sets.These experiments were done with a pendulum arrangement on sea ice during 2013 and 2014.The impact was directed to solid ice sheet as well as to a floating ice block. The pendulum mass acceleration and ice block acceleration were measured simultaneously with the impact force. The measurement results are compared with the simulated impacts.