Application of a coupled elasto-acoustic-damage system to acoustic emissions from sea ice fracture

Abstract

Sea ice fracture and the resultant acoustic emissions have been studied extensively through observation, experiments, and theoretical analysis. This work demonstrates the applicability of a novel time-domain method for simulating dynamic damage evolution in a coupled structural-acoustic system for the prediction of acoustic emissions from sea ice fracture. The primary aim of this study is to employ first principles modeling of acoustic emissions from failure, as derived via the theory of continuum damage mechanics, including the transition of the acoustic waves from solid to fluid domains. The overall solution method is designed to be compatible with modern high-performance computing environments. The algorithm is staggered, where first the solution for the dynamic fracture evolution is found with an explicit step, and then the coupled computation of the structural-acoustic system response is computed using the new values of the damage and modified geometry. Code and solution verification of the fully coupled solution algorithm are presented, as are comparison to laboratory experiments and field observations for sea-ice fracture.