Study of the Physical and Mechanical Characteristics of the Ice Cover

Abstract

The construction of crossing ferry landings across the Arctic Shelf and the regions located in the Extreme North or Far North, as well as the Siberian and Far Eastern rivers during the winter season is a difficult task of immediate concern. Nevertheless, it is necessary to learn the ice mechanical characteristics in order to examine the bearing capacity of the ice cover at the crossing ferry landings aimed at their establishment and strengthening. The purpose of the paper is to observe the physical and mechanical features of the ice cover by means of doing simulated experiments and verifying their validity using a computational model. The research performed the studies on Young’s modulus of ice definition and bending strength. Ice beam samples were used in the simulated experiments. Their physical and mechanical properties were put to the tests carried out with a special loading device. There was a structural failure of ice beam samples influenced by pure bending. The authors performed numerical computations on the ground of the data obtained by ANSYS software. The calculations resulted in determining condition of the stress-strain state of the samples at any time of loading up to their complete breaking-up. The efficiency of the algorithm is proved by comparing numerical calculations to simulated experimental data.