Author(s): Wenbo Dong; Fang Li; Li Zhou; Pentti Kujala; Xu Qin
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Polar ship; Sea ice drift; NDEM; Bending failure
Abstract: Accurate prediction of ice loads is of great importance for the structural design and safety assessment of polar ships. However, under realistic ice conditions, the influence of sea-ice drift driven by coupled wind and current should also be considered, since it can significantly alter local ice distribution, ship–ice contact patterns, and load characteristics. In this study, a numerical method is proposed for simulating sea-ice drift and ship–ice interaction under coupled wind–current effects. The method incorporates local ice crushing and bending failure, multi-body collision processes, and a unified fluid–ice interaction model including buoyancy, hydrodynamic loading, and aerodynamic loading on floating ice floes. Based on the proposed method, full-scale simulations were carried out for ship navigation in a stationary ice field, interaction between a drifting ice field and a stationary ship, and ship navigation in a drifting ice field. The results show that the method can reproduce both local ice failure and the overall drift and accumulation of the ice field. Environmental forcing was found to modify floe trajectories and local ice concentration, and to influence the resulting ship ice loads and the morphology of the cleared channel. In particular, compared with the stationary ice-field case, the ice resistance in the y-direction increased from 5.31 kN to 23.51 kN, corresponding to a rise of 342.7%, while the x-direction ice resistance increased from 55.05 kN to 62.00 kN, corresponding to an increase of 12.6%. These results demonstrate that icefield drift has a pronounced effect on ice load, especially on the lateral load component, and therefore should be taken into account in the analysis and assessment of ship performance in ice.
Year: 2026