| Summary: | We simulated the ice-structure interaction process using 2D FEM-DEM. The simulations are deterministic, but sensitive to initial conditions. Ice loads statistics from three sets of 50 simulations were considered. The sets differed by ice crushing strength. In two set the ice sheet was homogeneous and in one set the crushing strength of ice varied. In simulations with homogeneous ice sheets the initial condition varied causing different load records. In the case of the non-homogenous ice sheets, variation in load records came directly through the nonhomogeneity of the sheet. Our core result is that the stochastic nature of ice loads could be due to the non-homogeneity of sea ice, but virtually as much variation in the data was observed with homogenous ice sheets. This suggests that the variability in the ice loads was mainly caused by the ice-structure interaction process instead of the non-homogeneity of ice. Peer reviewed
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