Some Factors Influencing Iceberg Scour Estimates

Abstract

The phenomenon of seabed scouring by icebergs is a major threat to buried structures on the Canadian East Coast and is of immediate concern to the petroleum operators. The design of a suitable production and transportation system for the development of the Hibernia field is very much influenced by the potential size of iceberg scours. Several factors influence the theoretical estimates of scour size and some of these have been discussed in the mathematical and laboratory models proposed earlier. In this paper, an appraisal is made of the potential error in iceberg scour predictions caused by assuming a linear velocity variation during scour. The influence of an initial penetration of the iceberg prior to scour is examined. Upper and lower bounds of initial penetration depths are shown to exist which influence the resulting scour type.