LAUSR

Abstract To simulate non-simultaneous ice failure effects on ice-structure interaction, an extended dynamic Van der Pol based numerical model is developed. The concept of multiple ice failure zones is proposed to fulfil non-simultaneous crushing characteristics. Numerical results show that there is more simultaneous force acting on all segments at lower ice velocity and there is more non-simultaneous ice failure at higher velocity. Variations of force records show a decreasing trend with increasing ice velocity and structural width. These effects can be attributed to the assumption that the size of ice failure zone becomes smaller with increasing ice velocity, which increases the occurrence of non-simultaneous ice failures. Similarly, the decreasing size of ice failure zone as velocity increases is explained as the reason of different ice failure modes shifting from large-area ductile bending to small-area brittle crushing. The simulation results from a series of 134 demonstration cases show that the model is capable of predicting results at different ice velocities, structural widths and ice thicknesses. In addition, analysis of the ice indentation experiments indicates that the mean and minimum effective pressure have an approximately linear relationship with ice velocity, which testified the assumption on variations of ice failure zone in the model.