Fracture Analysis of Ice Forces

Abstract

The magnitude of the force acting on a structure during an ice‐structure interaction is obtained using an approach based on linear elastic fracture mechanics. The magnitude of the ice‐structure interaction force makes the ice fail in one of many possible failure modes of ice. Crack propagation, which is one of the most significant failure modes of ice, is analyzed in this work. A crack in an ice sheet will propagate when the stress intensity factor equals the fracture toughness of ice. The ice sheet is assumed to contain a system of cracks having the same length and orientation and equally spaced in both directions. The magnitude of the contact stresses acting on the structure, therefore, makes the stress intensity factor at the tip of the critical crack reach the fracture toughness of ice. Results of the analysis show that fracture solutions give contact stresses that fall within the range of measured values and depend on the crack densities and orientations as well as on the structure shape.