Experimental Studies on the Bohai Sea Ice Shear Strength

Abstract

Shear strength is a basic mechanical property of sea ice and directly affects the determination of ice loads on offshore structures in addition to the breakup behavior of ice cover in sea ice dynamics. This paper reports on the writers’ studies of the influences of ice temperature, brine volume, and shear stress rate on sea ice shear strength using laboratory shear tests with single-shear plane and lateral confinement. Ice samples were collected from the Laizhou Bay and Yellow River Delta of the Bohai Sea. Sea ice shear strength increases linearly in accordance with decreasing temperature and increasing shear stress rate, and decreases exponentially in accordance with the square root of brine volume. Considering the influences of both brine volume and shear stress rate comprehensively, this paper presents a double-parameter function to determine the sea ice shear strength.