Experimental and numerical study of ice loads on a four-legged semi-submersible

ABSTRACT

In this study, the ice loads on a scaled four-legged semi-submersible in a broken ice field were measured in a wave tank. Artificial ice models made of paraffin were applied in the experiment. The influence of ice floe properties, type of platform, incident velocity, and incident angle on ice loads was investigated. Shelter effect were observed most effective at a 0° incident angle, followed by a 45° incident angle. A sensitive analysis showed that a square-shaped platform with a narrow column spacing resulted in reduced ice loads in the broken ice field. The shape of floe has limited influence on the ice load under low incident velocity. Additionally, based on the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, the lognormal distribution model best fit the experimental data of the ice load peak values (at a 5% significance level). The numerical simulation based on Ice-MAS was validated with experimental results.

KEYWORDS:

• Broken ice
• four-legged semi-submersible
• ice load
• numerical and experimental tests

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the support of Shanghai Innovation Action Plan of Science and Technology (Grant no. 19DZ1207300).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Project of Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City, Grant No: SCKJ-JYRC-2022-13 and the 2021 Research Program of Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City, Grant No: SKJC-2021-01-003.