Ice Bridges Research Articles

Ice bridges of the James Bay Project: Reply

We would like to thank Gold for his most interesting discussion of our paper and the synthesis he has made of the recent papers on the bearing capacity of ice covers. We had discussed in our paper the use of either the elastic or the plastic theory for the computation of the bearing capacity of ice covers and this brought a comment from Gold which seems essentially to confirm our own computations and conclusions. Gold states: They do (the authors) consider, however, that the development of a full plastic section is a condition that can occur for moving loads, but information on the deformation behavior of ice indicates that this cannot be so. In the next paragraph Gold shows that ice would behave inelastically for loads applicd and removed in 200 s or more and that a load must travel at a speed of about 1 mph (1.6 km/h) to obtain this condition for 4 ft ( 1.3 m) thick ice. May we say that we have shown in our paper that the full plastic moment would be developed at speeds of less than 0.15 mph (0.3 km/h) and this was based on tests that were made in the laboratory (Lafleur 1970) on beams of snow ice loaded at various rates. These are indeed very low speeds and taking into account that the bearing capacity is much higher in the plastic range than in the elastic one, there is little do~tbt from the engineering point of view, that an ice bridgc should be designed for elastic failure as Gold has contended for many years and as was also done for ice bridges of the James Bay project. We do not believe however, as Gold seems to imply, that ice suddenly passes from a duc-

Blackstrap Lake Ice Cover Parking Lot: Ice Bridges of the James Bay Project: Salvage of Heavy Construction Equipment by a Floating Ice Bridge: Discussion

Blackstrap Lake Ice Cover Parking Lot: Ice Bridges of the James Bay Project: Salvage of Heavy Construction Equipment by a Floating Ice Bridge: Discussion

Ice bridges of the James Bay project : 16F, 6T, 11R. CAN. GEOTECH. J. V11, N4, NOV. 1974, P599–619

Ice bridges of the James Bay project : 16F, 6T, 11R. CAN. GEOTECH. J. V11, N4, NOV. 1974, P599–619

Ice Bridges of the James Bay Project

In 1972 and 1973, a winter road crossing eight rivers was built in the James Bay territory to enable the installation of camps and the mobilization of all equipment, materials and fuel needed for the construction of a permanent road leading to the La Grande River. This paper reports on the bearing capacity theory, design, site selection, construction and testing of the ice bridges spanning the main rivers.

Ice bridges

The ice bridges described in this article are constructed annually to replace the ferries which operate during the summer on the Yukon, Pelly and Stewart rivers in Yukon Territory. These river crossings are on the Mayo Road connecting Dawson City and Mayo with the Alaska Highway. The traffic on the road consists largely of heavy trucks carrying mining ores from the United Keno Hill, and other mines.

Ice bridges

Ice bridges

Ice bridges

Ice bridges