Trends in porosity сhanges of the unconsolidated part of ice ridge keel
Authors: Kharitonov V. V. 
Published: March 2021

An ice ridge is a special case of granular medium with a wide range of fractions. It represents a chaotic piling-up of blocks occurring under the action of gravity in the sail and due to the Archimedes force in the keel. An important characteristic of the internal structure of ice ridges is their porosity. Scientists from different countries have been dealing with this problem. First-year ice ridges are taken into consideration in Arctic and subarctic marine structural design, and the calculation of ice loads includes ridge porosity and strength, as well as other parameters. The aim of the present work is to discern the regularities of porosity distribution in the unconsolidated part of the keel with depth. Ice ridge porosity is identified by means of processing thermodrilling records. In this paper, porosity is interpreted as a step function equal to zero if there is ice at the point (x, y, z), and to one if there is no ice at the point (x, y, z). The author applies the model of compaction of the bulk medium under the influence of gravity, and, particularly for the keel, due to the Archimedes force. A zero depth corresponds to the lower surface of the keel, so each individual porosity distribution of the unconsolidated part of the keel at the drilling point must be shifted down until the maximum keel draft depth is reached in the region under consideration. After alignment, the step curves are averaged. The distance is measured up, starting from the depth of the maximum keel draft. The curve of the averaged porosity can be divided into segments reflecting the characteristic features of the distribution. According to the graphs, average porosity decreases exponentially. Ice ridges of several geographical regions are considered, and in each region is divided into groups by years of research. On the whole, 17 depth-wise distributions of the average porosity are obtained for seven regions. Each distribution was approximated according to the model, taking into account the average density of water and ice in the region. For each distribution, the values of compactibility and porosity at the zero depth, i. e. at the lower edge of the keel, were obtained; the second value only has mathematical sense. It is more convenient to consider the maximum value of the average porosity, which is taken as the initial porosity. With a probability of 90 %, the initial porosity is within the range of 0.450 ± 0.125. As the distance from the keel edge increases, the porosity curves converge to a fairly narrow range of values. At a distance of 12–14 m, this range is 0.07…0.12. The second parameter characterizing the porosity distribution in the unconsolidated part of the keel is compactibility. The steepness of the exponent approximating the average porosity curve depends on it, too. Compactibility is most affected by the strength of the ridged ice as well as the ice thickness. From the literature on the physical properties of ice it is known that as the temperature of ice increases, its strength decreases, and its plasticity increases. Thus, it can be concluded that compactibility is determined by the ice crystal structure as well the ice average temperature at the time of ridging — the warmer the ice, the higher the compactibility of the ice blocks in the keel.