The effect of sample dimensions on the compressive strength of model-scale ice

• Main Authors: Suominen, Mikko T. O., Bock und Polach, Rüdiger Ulrich Franz von, Haase, Andrea
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: Curran Associates, Inc. 2019
• Subjects: Arctic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11420/3202

Ice going vessels are commonly designed to break the ice cover through bending. However, due to the increasing interest in activities in the Arctic, the number of structures entering the ice covered sea areas with an unconventional ice breaking design and operational profiles increases. Thus, scaling the compressive strength of model-scale ice correctly gains significance. In order to avoid the effect of measurement methods on the resulting compressive strength, the methods should be comparable between the full and model-scale and between the model testing facilities. Thus, International Towing Tank Conference (ITTC) gives recommendations on the testing procedures. ITTC (2014) gives two different length-width ratios for the compressive strength specimen. However, as stated in the recommendations and noted by earlier studies (Li and Riska, 1996; von Bock und Polach and Ehlers, 2015), the specimen dimensions affect the determined nominal compressive strength. A series of measurements is conducted ex-situ in the Large Ice Model Basin of The Hamburg Ship Model Basin (HSVA) within EU funded project Hydralab+. This report presents the findings from the tests and compares them to the former works. The results show that the length-width ratio of the compressive strength sample affects the measured compressive strength, failure pattern, and the strain modulus determined from the compressive strength measurements. Additionally, there are indications that different failure developments in-situ and ex-situ occur and it needs to be investigated to what extend those affect the compressive strength.