Prediction of ice-ship-interaction for icebreaking vessels

The benefits of more profitable transport routes and explorations of natural resources in arctic areas come at the expense of significantly more demanding environmental conditions, which are also less well known, to which the relevant ships has to comply to. The compliance concerns primarily a vessels ability to break ice while transiting. The current icebreaking analysis is based on empirical knowledge and experience from relatively thin first-year ice, gained to a large extent in the Baltic Sea. As opposed to this, the availability of a direct simulation approach for an icebreaking vessel operating in various target ice conditions is of large commercial interest. PRICE will address this interest and aims to develop a direct simulation approach for the prognosis of the hull load and icebreaking resistance. It brings together icebreaking ship designers from industry with academic experts from ice & structure mechanics, hydrodynamics & computational engineering as well as physical models and probabilistic methods in a joint collaborative effort. Unique to this project is the synergy of these disciplines. Calibration of the established numerical models for calculation of ice forces is being performed in parallell with optimization of the algorithmic parameters. Furthermore, statistical estimation of the characteristic and dimensioning ice parameters for relevant transport routes in the Arctic has been carried out based on available measurements. Integration of these load and response models is under completion.

For the research community, there is a significant benefit associated with the extended and calibrated models for numerical calculation of extreme environmental conditions and ice loading on ship hulls. The research results have been shared with the industry partners, which also includes results obtained by application of the developed tools to a number of different ship hulls for various ice conditions. This will serve to achieve optimal design of ships for Arctic operations, both with respect to economy and safety. The benefits of applying the developed methods are illustrated by the Case study design as part of the project. Furthermore, the design Case study is found to have been of great benefit for the industry partners in relation to performing design of two ships which will be operating in Arctic waters. These design projects are briefly summarized in the result report for the project.

Global climate changes decrease the ice extent across the Arctic Sea, i.e., the ice retreats northwards of the Russian north coast. This promotes an increase of commercial shipping in the Arctic, in addition to oil and gas resource exploitation activities. Arctic passages from Northern Europe to the Far East are economically appealing alternatives to existing sea-transportation routes, i.e. via the Suez Canal, due to up to 40% shortened distances and significant fuel savings. Furthermore, the reduction in sea ice increases the window for offshore operations and makes them feasible in formerly inaccessible areas. The benefits of more profitable transport routes and explorations of natural resources come at the expense of significantly more demanding environmental conditions, which are also less well known, to which the ship has to comply to. The compliance concerns primarily a vessels ability to break ice while transiting. The current icebreaking analysis is based on empirical knowledge and experience from relatively thin first-year ice, gained to a large extent in the Baltic Sea. As opposed to this, the availability of a direct simulation approach for an icebreaking vessel operating in various target ice conditions is of large commercial interest. PRICE will address this interest and aims to develop a direct simulation approach for the prognosis of the hull load and icebreaking resistance. It brings together icebreaking ship designers from industry with academic experts from ice & structure mechanics, hydrodynamics & computational engineering as well as physical models and probabilistic methods in a joint collaborative effort. Unique to this project will be the synergy of these disciplines.