Estimating performance requirements for ships navigating to and from Voisey's Bay

The Voisey's Bay nickel mine is located in Northern Labrador. To reach the mine site in winter requires a ship to navigate through a range of ice conditions. Close to the mine site, in the fjord, the ice is mostly uniform first year ice, up to 1.3 m thick. However, before reaching open water th...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Molyneux, W. D.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: 2005
Subjects:
Online Access:https://nrc-publications.canada.ca/eng/view/ft/?id=d1dccacd-2bbd-4f8a-a911-87e0a655b826
https://nrc-publications.canada.ca/eng/view/object/?id=d1dccacd-2bbd-4f8a-a911-87e0a655b826
https://nrc-publications.canada.ca/fra/voir/objet/?id=d1dccacd-2bbd-4f8a-a911-87e0a655b826
Description
Summary:The Voisey's Bay nickel mine is located in Northern Labrador. To reach the mine site in winter requires a ship to navigate through a range of ice conditions. Close to the mine site, in the fjord, the ice is mostly uniform first year ice, up to 1.3 m thick. However, before reaching open water the ship must pass through broken ice, several layers thick, with different amounts of consolidation. This paper describes research carried out at the Institute for Ocean Technology, in support of the environment impact assessment, on behalf of Canadian Coast Guard, Newfoundland Region. The work fell into three distinct phases, which were full-scale trials on an icebreaker, model experiments on an icebreaker and model experiments on an ice breaking bulk carrier. The paper then identifies gaps in our knowledge of ship performance in typical Labrador ice conditions and the steps that must be taken to overcome them. Peer reviewed: Yes NRC publication: Yes