SCALING OF FAILURE OF FLOATING SEA ICE PLATES

Abstract eng:
Because early laboratory tests showed sea ice to be notch-insensitive, the failure of floating sea ice in the Arctic has until recently been analyzed according to either elasticity with a strength limit or plasticity, which both exhibit no size effect. Fracture mechanics was considered to be inapplicable to sea ice, and if a size effect was suspected, it was regarded as strictly statistical. This state of affairs was radically changed by the epoch-making size effect tests of Dempsey’s team in the Arctic, in which fracture specimens up to 80 m in size were broken. The tests confirmed a strong deterministic size effect and applicability of fracture mechanics on the large scale. Building on this fact, now almost generally accepted, fracture mechanics solutions for several important problems have been obtained. One such problem is fracture caused by a vertical concentrated load. Although this is an important problem, it is impossible to get exact analytical solutions, which causes lack of generality and transparency. The present paper briefly reviews a recent study of a similar problem where the floating ice plate is subjected to a vertical line load, which is a one-dimensional problem. An exact analytical solution can be obtained, with only mild simplifications. Although this problem is of lesser practical relevance, its analytical solution provides a much better insight and understanding of the size effect of the floating sea ice plates.

• Export as: BibTeX | MARC | MARCXML | DC | EndNote | NLM | RefWorks
• Add to your basket