Research on a new-type caisson with conic ice resistant structure in wharf application

Abstract

Abstract Wharf structure in frozen areas is easily influenced by the heavy ice load and therefore it is necessary to adopt anti ice strategy in wharf construction. The conventional ice resistant strategies generally include designing the structure by using the extreme ice load and using solid structures in the ice-affected parts, which make the structure investment cost high due to the large ice load. To resolve above problems, this paper proposes a new type of ice resistant structure, namely the round caisson with conic ice resistant structure. The structure can transform failure type of the flow ice from compressive failure to bending failure, which can greatly reduce the ice load and therefore the project investment. To validate the ice resistant effect of the structure, a comparation of the ice load of the proposed structure with non-conic structure is conducted by mathematical calculation, and this paper develops a physical model experiment considering the natural condition of Changxing Island Port Area. The results obtained from above experiments show that (1) the measured ice load obtained by model experiment is reduced, (2) and the ice load on the conic ice resistant structure is much smaller than that on the non-conic structure.