Abrasion of Steel Sheet Pile Due to a Movement of Ice Floes and Its Estimation

Abstract

Ice floes are widely known to abrade surfaces of structures constructed in sea water areas where ice floes move actively. Since both corrosion and abrasion by sea ice cause a decrease in the thickness of the steel of marine structures in frozen sea water areas, differentiating these effects is difficult in practice.We measured thickness of the steel sheet piles used for the side walls of the channel and for the piers of the bridge built over the channel. From the measurements we found the abrasion of the steel by sea ice movements and developed a technique to estimate the abrasion depth.