Mechanics of Ice Rubble Over Multiple Scales

Abstract

The mechanics of ice rubble plays an important role in many different engineering applications, including ice-structure interactions with oil and gas infrastructure, river and lake engineering, and ship-ice interactions in northern shipping lanes. Of particular interest are the massive accumulations of rubble formed by shear or compression in the ice cover, which consolidate to form sea ice ridges that can be hazards to such structures. These are common ice features in Arctic and sub-Arctic environments and as a result often govern the design loads for ships, coastal and offshore structures operating in these environments. In addition, ridge keels can scour the seafloor in relatively shallow waters posing a threat to pipelines and other subsea facilities. It is not clear what load an ice rubble feature can exert on a given structure and how it will deform. It will depend on a number of parameters including the age of the feature, its composition and structure, and its strength and failure behaviour. This paper will examine the mechanical properties of ice rubble over multiple scales. The paper will begin at the one block level, describing how ice block properties vary over time, before advancing to look at the bonding/sintering processes that occur between two ice blocks and eventually the processes that take place between multiple ice blocks (i.e., ice rubble) and large scale sea ice ridges. Particular attention will be paid to the effects temperature and pressure have on ice rubble, as these parameters are believed to be important to our understanding of its behavior.