Proceedings oh the 18th IAHR International Symposium on Ice (2006)

BALTIC MODEL OF GLOBAL ICE FORCES ON VERTICAL STRUCTURES

Tuomo Krn1,2, Yan Qu3 and QianjinYue3 1 Karna Research and Consulting, Helsinki, Finland 2 Formely VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland 3 Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a simple equation for the determination of the global ice pressure in a condition where competent level ice is acting on a vertical offshore structure. Full-scale data that was obtained on a lighthouse in the Baltic Sea was used in an investigation of local and global ice forces. The ice thickness and the aspect ratio are used as two independent parameters to account for the size effect. The proposed formula also takes account of the time of exposure and the differences that are met in ice forces in various ice regimes. Furthermore, two kinds of magnifying effects are considered. Based on existing laboratory data, the global ice pressure is considered to be a function of the compliance of the structure. In addition, a dynamic magnification factor is adopted to justify a conventional design approach, where a quasi-static load is used as a substitute for the time-varying ice force. KEY WORDS: Ice forces; Vertical structures; Global pressure, Size efect; Ice crushing. INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES This paper concerns the problem of determining the global ice force in a condition depicted in Fig. 1. The highest forces due to level ice action arise if the ice fails by crushing. This situation may occur when the driving force Fdr is high enough to maintain a crushing process at the ice-structure interface. A precondition for this loading case is that the near-field ice area in front of the structure is laterally confined so that radial cracks emanating from the icestructure contact area do not lead to a load release. Field observations indicate that the lateral confinement is sufficient in this sense if DFL > 50 w. According to a common practice, the design ice force for this loading scenario is defined by estimating a quasi-static global ice force as
FG = pG w h

(1)

where pG is the global pressures, h is the ice thickness and w is the width of the loaded area of the structure. According to this definition, the parameter pG represents the maximum peak value of a time-varying total ice force, occurring within a given exposure time. The time of exposure is usually defined as 100 years. The global pressure is defined as the average

-253-

Proceedings oh the 18th IAHR International Symposium on Ice (2006) pressure over the nominal ice-structure contact area. The global pressure is also known as the effective pressure (Sodhi and Haehnel 2003).

w
t en em n nfi Co

DFL

v Fdr
t en em n nfi Co

Figure 1. Illustration of a vertical structure that is exposed to the action of level ice. The objective of this paper is to show how the global ice pressure pG depends on the size parameters h and w. The results to be presented herein were derived and described in more detail in Krn and Qu (2005).

LOCAL PRESSURES AS BASIS OF THE ANALYSIS The data that is used in this paper was obtained in field tests that were carried out on the lighthouse Norstrmsgrund in the Baltic Sea. Jochmann and Schwarz (2001) provide a full description of the test set-up. A brief summary is given by Schwarz and Jochmann (2001). The present paper makes use of data obtained in 39 events of ice crushing that were recorded in winters 1999 and 2000. Local forces were measured by nine load panels, which were 1.2 m wide. All loading events were categorized in accordance with the ice failure mode. The main analysis was done by using those conditions where a level ice was acting on the structure and created a stationary ice crushing process. Equation (1) does not apply in conditions where the stucture is experiencing self-excited vibrations. Such events were excluded from the analysis.
3 Panel pressure (Mpa) MaxPeak pressure (MPa) 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 Ice thickness (m) 0.8 1 1.2
-0.45

Series1 1999 y = 1.44x

-0.43

Series2 2000

y = 0.80x

Figure 2. MaxPeak pressures on the load panels as a function of ice thickness.

-254-

Proceedings oh the 18th IAHR International Symposium on Ice (2006) Measurements on ice crushing events showed that up to five or six panels adjacent to the line of ice action experienced similar peak- and average values. Such panels were considered as effective panels for the analysis. For each event, the highest maximum pressure value of the various maxima recorded by the effective panels was denoted as the MaxPeak pressure. Correspondingly, the mean value of the peak pressures experienced by the effective panels was denoted as the MeanPeak pressure. The MaxPeak pressures were typically 25 % to 35 % higher than the MeanPeak pressures. According to the data obtained in the winters 1999 and 2000, the MaxPeak panel pressures depend on the ice thickness as shown in Fig. 2. THE THICKNESS EFFECT Analysis of panel pressures The data shown in Fig. 2 concerns conditions of continuous, brittle ice crushing. The thickness of the different ice sheets varied from 0.2 m to 1.13 m. The regression curve for all data points was found as pLR = 0.80 h 0.45 and an upper bound is given by pLUB = 1.44 h-0.43, where the ice thickness h and the local pressure pL have correspondingly the dimensions of [m] and [MPa]. Ice that was thicker than 0.6 m was usually rafted ice. Therefore, a regression analysis was made separately for data in the range of 0.2 m to 0.60 m. In this case the trend line was found as pLR = 0.80 h-0.44. Therefore, the trend that was found in this analysis was not effected by the range of the ice thickness. Methods of defining the peak pressures were studied by calculating the 98 % cumulative frequency (cdf) value for each event. This value was found to be around 0.72 times the measured MaxPeak pressure. Correspondingly, the ratio between the 95% cdf values and the actually measured peak pressures was in average only 0.64. The influence of the ice velocity was studied by analysing crushing events where the ice velocity was in the range of v < 0.05 m/s. In such condititions the ice crushing process was usually not continuous. For such conditions the parameters (A, n) of the trendline pLR = A hn were found as (0.38, -0.65) for the MeanPeak pressure and (0.50, -0.65) for the MaxPeak pressure. These pressures were slightly lower than the pressures measured in the conditions of continuous crushing. The influence of the ambient air temperature was studied by categorizing the data in accordance with the average value of the air temperature that had prevailed during two days before an event concerned. A few data points obtained on 5 April 2000 indicate that warm ice may occasionally create higher forces than cold ice. However, the amount of data that is available is not sufficient for any firm conclusions. Influences of the ice quality were also studied by using an indirect approach described in Krn and Qu (2005). It was concluded that the strength of competent sheets of level ice is very random. As a result, the pressures arising from different loading events were very scattered as seen in Fig. 2. It is believed that the scatter observed in these measurements arises due to the heterogeneity if natural ice sheets. Pressures on a narrow zone The panel width was wP = 1.2 m in the test series that is used here. Hence, the aspect ratio wP/h varied from 1.2 to 6.0. Earlier results indicate that an aspect ratio that varies in this range

-255-

Proceedings oh the 18th IAHR International Symposium on Ice (2006) may have a siginficant influence on the pressure. Therefore, a spectral model (Krn and Qu 2006a) was used to standardise the measured pressures to correspond either an aspect ratio of wP/h =1.0 or an inifitely narrow contact zone. An objective of this transformation was to make the panel pressures suitable for an analysis where the global pressures of a structure of any width and geometry are obtained numerically from the measured panel pressures. These results indicate that the peak values of the local pressures on a narrow zone are about 25 % higher than the measured peak values of the panel pressure After the transformation described above, the maximum value of the zone pressure does not include any width effects. The zone pressure can, therefore, be expressed as

p zone = Az h n

(2)

As a summary, a value of n = -0.50 was adopted for the exponent in the power line expression while describing the thickness effect on narrow zones. The data indicates that Eq. (2) with n = -0.50 is valid in the conditions defined by wP/h 1.0. INFLUENCE OF THE ASPECT RATIO It is generally accepted that the aspect ratio w/h has a significant influence on the global pressure (Sodhi 1998, 2001; Lset et al. 1999; Masterson and Spencer 2002). The results of the local pressure analysis were used in this analysis to study how the aspect ratio influences the global pressure. Due to the complexities involved, two methods were used as described briefly below. Direct data analysis Data obtained at Norstrmsgrund was used to study how the width of the ice-structure contact area influences a nominal peak pressure while the forces measured by one to five panels were adopted for the analysis. The pressure acting on such a limited contact area was expressed as

p = A h n f (D ) ,
D f (D ) = D 0
m

(3a) (3b)

where D0 is a reference width and D is a width of a part of the ice-structure contact area. It was found that in most events, the values of the exponent m were in a range from -0.35 to - 0.1. The mode of the parameter m was found as m = -0.2. Application of a spectral model It is known since the results obtained by Afanasiev (1972) as well Frederking and Gold (1975) that the width effect arises from two main effects. First, the global pressure due to ice crushing decreases with the width because of the non-simultaneous crushing on various contact zones. Second, the pressures on a flat-faced structure assume their highest values close to the corner areas. This is known as the edge effect. Takeuchi et al. (2002) found these two phenomena in medium-scale tests. To cope with both of these phenomena, the spectral

-256-

Proceedings oh the 18th IAHR International Symposium on Ice (2006)

model derived by Krn and Qu (2006a) was used to determine the global pressures on cylindrical and flat faced structures. The global pressures were expressed as a function of the aspect ratio (Krn and Qu 2005). Figure 3 shows results of this analysis in terms of a normalised pressures f(w/h) on flat faced and cylindrical structures. The normalised pressure was obtained here by dividing the global pressure with the pressure acting on a zone of infinitesimal width. It can be seen that the edge effect influences the global pressure if w/h < 15. The kinetic friction, defined by the friction coefficient k has a small influence on the global pressures on cylindrical structures. These results suggest that the ratio mG between the global force on a cylindrical structure and a flat structure is around mG = 0.85 while the aspect ratio w/h varies from 2 to 5. Several tests that have been conducted in the past suggest that the form factor is in the range from 0.77 to 0.90 for narrow structures. The numerical results obtained herein suggest that for wide structures the forces on a cylindrical structure are about 10% lower than on a flat structure.These results indicate further that the edge effect on a flat structure influences the total force by less than 5% if the aspect ratio is w/h > 15. For w/h = 2 the real global force is evaluated here to be 23% higher than estimates, which are obtained by ignoring the edge effect.
1.2 1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0 1 10 Aspect ratio 100 1000
Flat_NoEdge Cyl_myyk=0.1 Cyl_myyk = 0

4 Normalized global pressure

Flat_Edge

Non dimensional pressure

Present model, I = 1.0 Sodhi, I = 1.0, L/h = 0.1 Sodhi, I = 1.0, L/h = 0.5

0 0 10

10

10 Aspect ratio

10

Figure 3. Comparison of the normalised global pressure f (w/h) for flat and cylindrical structures.

Figure 4. The width effect predicted by Sodhi (2001) and by the present model.

A curve fitting algorithm was used to replace the numerical results on the width effect (Fig. 3) by simplifying formulas. The result is shown for the cylindrical structure as a part of Eq. (5). A comparison with Sodhis model Sodhi (1998, 2001) used a different approach to derive an expression for the global pressure as a function of the aspect ratio. In his model, local pressures are used to obtain a negative exponential function, which takes account of the spatial correlation of the local forces. The edge effect is not considered. In the present model, the edge effect is considered and the correlation coefficients were replaced by coherence functions. These functions consider both the spatial and the time correlation of the local forces (Krn et al 2005, 2006a). Figure 4 shows a comparions between the predictions obtained by these two models. A flat structure is considered. In both cases, a normalized global pressure was calculated by using the global pressure obtainend at w/h = 100 as the normalizing factor. The parameter I in Fig. 4

-257-

Proceedings oh the 18th IAHR International Symposium on Ice (2006) characterizes the forces on a narrow zone. This parameter is the ratio between the standard deviation of the fluctuating force component and the mean value. The parameter L is a correlation length parameter that is needed in Sodhis model. Input values were assumed for both models as they have been obtained in tests where ice forces are created by continuous, brittle crushing. Sodhis analysis indicates that the global pressure due to continuous brittle crushing becomes almost independent of the aspect ratio w/h in the range of w/h > 10. As the global pressure appears to be invariant at hig values of the aspect ratio, Sodhi (2001) proposes that a formula for the total quasi-static force can be established by using the average value of the timevarying local pressure as a main parameter. However, the results obtained by the present model show (Fig. 3 and 4) that the global pressure continues decreasing with the aspect ratio even in the range w/h > 100. This difference between the two models arises because, according to full-scale data that is used in the present model, the forces due to continuous brittel crushing involve low-frequency fluctuations that have a significant spatial correlation. Due to these slowly varying force components, the width effect influences the global force also at high aspect ratios. CONSIDERATION OF FURTHER PHENOMENA INVOLVED The field data shows that the strength of different ice sheets varies randomly. As shown in Fig. 1, the local pressures caused by different sheets of the same thickness could vary by a factor of two or more. Accordingly, short-term measurements can not be directly used to predict the highest ice forces that can be expected during a return period of 100 years. Therefore, extreme value analyses were made on both the panel pressures and the global pressures measured on the lighthouse. Results of this analysis are described in Krn and Qu (2005, 2006c) for the panel pressures. Equation (1) is used to describe the quasi-static actions posed by the ice. The effects of dynamic amplification have usually been ignored in such an analysis. In order to improve the accuracy of this kind of analysis, a specific study was made on the dynamic magnification associated with the ice crushing process. An amplification factor was derived. Using this amplification factor, an equivalent global force and an equivalent global pressure were defined. Details of this part of our analysis are shown in Krn and Qu (2005, 2006b). Finally, based on a literature review, it was noted that the global pressures often increase at a low ice velocity. This occurs in a condition where the continuous crushing prevailing at higher ice velocities changes to an ice-structure interaction mode known as intermittent crushing or alternating creep-brittle crushing (Sodhi and Haehnel 2003). This change of the crushing failure mode occures at a lower ice velocity. Kamesaki et el. (1996) show that the force magnifying effect is higher for compliant structures than for stiff structures. The original data obtained at the lighthouse Norstrmsgrund does not show a clear increase of the ice forces at a low velocity. It is deemed that this situation arises because this structure is very stiff. The static stiffness at the waterline has been evaluated as 1.7 GN/m. Therefore, the results of Kamesaki et al (1996) were adopted as described below. THE BALTIC MODEL As a result of the analysis described above, Eq. (1) was specified for circular and octagonal structures as

-258-

Proceedings oh the 18th IAHR International Symposium on Ice (2006)

FEG = p EG w h
0.16

(4)

w p EG = D S AIR h 0.5 h (5) where pEG is an equivalent global pressure for a quasi-static design, D a dynamic magnification coefficient to consider inertial effects, S a coefficient to consider the magnification of the external force due to alternating ductile-brittle crushing that can occur for a compliant structure, AIR an ice regime parameter, which considers the variations of the forces encounted in different ice regimes. The influence of the time of exposure is also considered by this parameter.
A need for the parameter AIR arises from a comparative study of the forces measured in different sea areas. This item will be discussed further in a companion paper (Krn et al. 2006d). Data obtained on the lighthouse Norstrmsgrund shows that in the ice regime of the Gulf of Bothnia, AIR = 0.70 MPa m12 for the expected maximum of an event selected at random within a winter season, AIR = 1.25 MPa m12 for the annual maximum and AIR = 1.88 MPa m12 for the maximum force expected for a return period of 100 years. For the lighthouse concerned here, S = 1.0 and D = 1.2. The dynamic amplification coefficient D depends on the aspect ratio, natural frequency and the structural damping of the structure concerned (Krn and Qu 2005, 2006b). Equation (5) was derived for conditions where the aspect ratio is in the range of w/h > 2. The equation is deliberately written in a form where the thickness effect can be expressed as p h-0.5 for w/h= 1. This expression is in agreement with the thickness effect that is found on panel pressure measurements on the lighhouse Norstrmsgrund. It is of interest to notice that Fransson et al. (1994) as well as Palmer and Dempsey (2002) have used fracture mechanical approaches to find the same thickness effect. Correspondingly, the dimension of the parameter AIR is is the same as the dimension of a fracture toughness. In the range of w/h > 2 the global pressures obtained from Eq. (5) follows the relationship pEG h-0.34 for structures with a fixed value of the width w. CONCLUSIONS Based on an extensive data analysis, a new expression was derived to describe the size effect in ice crushing. The aspect ratio and the ice thickness are the main parameters of this equation. An ice regime parameter is used to account for the differences met in the ice forces in different sea areas. In addition, a magnifying parameter is used to consider that the external pressure on a compliant structure may increase at a low ice velocity. A second magnifying factor is needed to consider the dynamic magnification due to inertial forces. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was funded mainly by the European Commission under the Contract No TREN/04/FP6EN/S07.31041/503721. The working group ISO TC67 SC7 WG8 has also provided significant support along with the companies Petro-Canada and Statoil. Several ice experts working for the group WG8 gave very valuable comments and advice.

-259-

Proceedings oh the 18th IAHR International Symposium on Ice (2006) REFERENCES Afanasiev, V.P. (1972). Ice pressure on vertical structures. Transportnoe Stroitelstvo (3): 4748, 1972. Technical Translation 1708, National Research Council Canada. Fransson, F. and Nystrm, M. (1994). Non-simultaneous ice failure on wide and narrow offshore structures. Proc.12th IAHR Ice Symp., Trondheim, Norway. Vol 2. pp. 774-783. Frederking, R. and Gold, L. (1975). Experimental study of edge loading of ice plates. Canadian Geotechnical Journal, Vol. 12, pp. 701 - 463. Jochmann, P. and Schwarz, J. (2001). Ice Force Measurements at Lighthouse Norstrmsgrund. Winter 2000. LOLEIF Report No 9. EU Contract MAS-CT-97-0098. 170 p + Appendix. Hamburg, Germany December 2001. Kamesaki, K., Yamauchi, Y and Krn, T. (1996) Ice force as a function of structural compliance. Proc. 13th IAHR Ice Symposium. Beijing, 1996. Vol. I, pp. 395 - 402. Krn, T. and Qu, Y. (2005). Analysis of the size effect in ice crushing - edition 1. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Internal Report RTE-IR-6/2005. Version 1.0, 167 p. Available at: www.karna.eu. Krn, T., Qu, Y., Yue, Q.J., Bi, X.J and Khnlein, W. (2006a). A Spectral Model of Ice Forces due to Ice Crushing. J. Offshore Mechanics & Arctic Engineering (accepted). Krn, T., Qu, Y. and Yue, Q.J. (2006b). An equivalent lateral force for continuous crushing. Proc. 25th Int. Conf. on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic. Eng. June 4-9, Hamburg, Germany (accepted). Krn, T., Qu, Y. and Yue, Q.J. (2006c). An extreme value analysis of local pressures. Proc. Int. Conf. Exhibition on Performance of Ships and Structures in Ice. ICETECH-06. July 16-19. Banff. Alberta, Canada (accepted). Krn, T., Qu, Y. and Yue, Q.J. (2006d). Extended Baltic model of global ice forces. This volume IAHR06 proceedings. Lset, S., Shkhinek, K. and Uvarova, E. (1999). An overview of the influence of structure width and ice thickness on the global ice load. Proc. 15th Int. Conf. Port Ocean Eng. under Arctic Cond., Helsinki, Vol 1., pp. 425 - 434. Masterson, D.M and Spencer, P.A. (2001). Ice force versus aspect ratio. In: Dempsey, J.P and Shen H.H. (eds.) IUTAM Symposium on Scaling Laws in Ice Mechanics and Ice Dynamics. Kluwer 2001, pp. 31 - 42. Palmer, A. and Dempsey, J. (2002). Models of large-scale crushing and spalling related to high-pressure zones. Proc. 16th IAHR Ice Symp. Dunedin, New Zealand, pp. 495 - 502. Schwarz, J. and Jochmann, P. (2001). Ice Force Measurements within the LOLEIF-Project, Proc. 16th Int. Conf. Port Ocean Eng. under Arctic Cond., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Sodhi, D. (1998). Nonsimultaneous crushing during edge indentation of freshwater ice sheets. Cold Regions Scinece and Technology 27 (1998) 179-195. Sodhi, D. (2001). Crushing failure during ice-structure interaction. Engineering Fracture Mechanics. 68(2001) 1889-1921. Sodhi, D. and Haehnel B. (2003). Crushing ice forces on structures. J. Cold Regions Engineering. December 2003, pp. 153 - 170. Takeuchi, T., Akagawa, S., Saeki, H., Nakazawa, N., Hirayama, K. and (2002). Ice load equation for level ice sheet. Int. J. Offshore Polar Eng. September 2002, pp. 171 - 177.

-260-