FE-simulation of continuous ice failure based on model update technique

• Main Authors: Kolari, Kari, Kuutti, Juha, Kurkela, Juha
• Format: Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Curran Associates Inc. 2010
• Subjects: continuum damage mechanics; cracks; ocean engineering; offshore structures; tensile testing; Arctic
• Online Access: https://cris.vtt.fi/en/publications/4b22c74c-27db-42e9-9d1d-854197c94e7b; http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84857704707&partnerID=8YFLogxK; http://www.poac.com/PapersOnline.html

One of the greatest challenges in the FE analysis of ice-structure interaction is the modelling the failure of ice itself and the continuous failure process during the interaction. FE analysis is often cancelled after complete material failure has occurred or completely failed elements are deleted from the model and analysis is continued after the deletion. Neither of the approaches described above is satisfactory. Using advanced methods, analysis can be continued after complete material failure and failed sections can be retained in the model without violating the law of conservation of mass. In this paper a new approach for the modelling of interaction is proposed. In the approach the failure of material is modelled with anisotropic continuum damage mechanics (CDM) model. The failure mode is assumed to be brittle. The CDM model is used to predict direction of a crack evolution while the proposed model update technique is applied to propagate the crack in FE geometry. In detail, numerical analysis is divided into segments. Explicit cracks are created in the model between segments based on the prediction given by the CDM model. The approach enables analysis to continue after significant cracking and e.g. the pileup of ice can be simulated. The proposed approach has been applied in the simulation of tensile test and interaction of conical structure and level ice.