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• ANNUAL REPORT 2013
Ice floe structure interaction
During last year PhD candidate Wenjun Lu focused on
observing the failure processes that may occur when a
structure is interacting with different ice features. He
attended the OATRC2013 expedition to the Greenland
Sea to collect valuable full-scale data and used his
observations from this research cruise as well as that
from cruises in 2012 to develop theoretical interaction
models. Later in 2013 he developed a theoretical model
for global splitting vs. local bending failure of ice inter-
action with a structure (Figure 2). The theoretical model
is being implemented into a numerical code that is a part
of the SAMCoT Toolbox.
Developing a numerical model of ice-fluid-
structure interactions
PhD candidate Andrei Tsarau is studying ice-fluid-
structure interaction. Possible interactions between a
floating structure and the surrounding ice determine the
design of offshore vessels and their operational capabil-
ities in the area. However, ice-structure interactions in
this context usually imply complex phenomena related
to several branches of physics. For example, hydrody-
namics may influence the total load on a structure by
changing the drift direction of broken ice in the vicinity
of the floater and is thus considered to be an important
aspect of ice-structure interactions.
The goal of his doctoral study is to develop a numerical
model for predicting the hydrodynamic effect of a float-
ing structure on the behaviour of broken ice around and
underneath the structure. In 2013 Tsarau was part of
Figure 1. Illustration showing the coupling of different phenomena and scales in ice-floating structure interaction.
Figure 2. Idealized interaction and contact scenario for
ice-structure.