Ice loads from first-year ice ridges and rubble fields

Abstract

A method for estimating global loads from consolidated first-year ice ridges and rubble fields on wide Arctic offshore vertical-sided structures is presented. The method utilizes full-scale global ice load measurements in the Arctic to represent the failure behavior of the consolidated layer and a Mohr-Coulomb approach for the remaining layers. By including full-scale data, the model can take into account the effects of scale and non-simultaneous failure of the consolidated ice layer across the structure width. The results are compared with those obtained from several other first-year ice ridge and rubble field load models.Key words: first-year ice ridges, rubble fields, ice load and pressure measurements, Arctic structures, ice load models.