Proceedings of the Thirty-second (2022) International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference
Shanghai, China, June 5–10, 2022
Copyright © 2022 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)
ISBN 978-1-880653-81-4; ISSN 1098-6189

www.isope.org

Experimental Investigation on breaking strength of model ice with circular ice plate
indentation tests
Wei-hang Zhao 1, Yu-kui Tian 1*, Chao-ge Yu 1, Xu-hao Gang 1, Peng Lu 2
1. China Ship Scientific Research Center; 2. Dalian University of Technology
1.Wuxi, Jiangsu, China; 2. Dalian, Liaoning, China

INTRODUCTIONABSTRACT

The breaking failure of ice sheet caused by the force
applied vertically with structure operating in ice area such as
floating body underneath the ice cover is gradually becoming
an important scenario in the polar exploration and utilizationengineering. Common engineering problems in this field
include the ice-breaking positioning of underwater vehicles, etc.
The characteristics of ice strength have a direct impact on thedesign and evaluation of the structural strength and safety
manipulation. When the floating body underneath the ice cover
apply force vertically, the ice sheet will appear shearing,bending and other failure forms and then break, among which
flexural failure is the main failure form of the ice sheet.
Therefore, the flexural strength tests of ice are of greatsignificance for the design and evaluation of the structural
strength and safety manipulation of floating body underneaththe ice cover. In the research process of nearly half a century,
the measurement of flexural strength has mainly developed
three measurement methods: flexural-strength test with acantilever beam (Xu et al., 2019), 3-point-bend test with a beam(Frederking et al., 1983), and test with central loading of a disc
(Moskvichev et al., 2002). Aiming at the engineering scenario
of breaking failure of ice sheet caused by the force appliedvertically with floating body underneath the ice cover, theflexural strength of model ice is measured by the test withcentral loading of a disc. The tests with central loading of a discare relatively not so labor consuming that allows to accumulate
the larger scope of data than during cantilever beam tests withthe same time and labor consumption and finally to makestatistic evaluation based on larger sampling (Krupina andKubyshkin, 2007).

The breaking failure of ice sheet caused by the force
applied vertically with structure operating in ice area such as
floating body underneath the ice cover is an important scenario
in the polar exploration and utilization engineering. The
characteristics of ice strength have a direct impact on the designand evaluation of the structural strength and safety
manipulation. In this paper, relying on the Small Ice Model
Basin of China Ship Scientific Research Center (CSSRCSIMB), the columnar saline model ice was made to carry outindentation tests on circular ice plate specimen, and thebreaking strength of the model ice was correspondinglyanalyzed. During the test, the center of the ice specimen on theevenly distributed circumferential support was loaded
vertically, the force curve of the ice specimen from the initialloading to the breaking failure was recorded with a force
measurement system, and the breaking strength was obtained
according to the peak force. At the same time, the failure detailsof the ice specimen were documented with a high-speed video
camera, and then the process and mode of ice destruction wasanalyzed. On this basis, a series of experimental tests werecarried out to analyze the influence on the model ice breaking
strength by varying the loading rate and the ice temperature.
The work of this paper supplements an effective method formeasuring and analyzing the ice strength characteristics of themodel ice for CSSRC SIMB, and also establishes a preliminary
foundation for the further research of the mechanism of ice
loading under the vertical interaction between the structure andthe ice sheet.
KEY WORDS: Ice model basin; model ice; circular ice plate
specimen; indentation test; ice breaking strength1362