Ice Loads On Conical Structures And The Exploration Of The Numerical Simulation Method

Ice will exert forces on offshore structures when moving on the sea, which may pose a threat to the safety of offshore structures. Ice load has been used as a control load in the field of ocean engineering, especially in the high latitude regions. It is necessary to avoid or to decrease losses when we exploit. As a result, effects of ice on offshore structures have become the subject of many ocean engineers.Generally,the maximum ice load on a structure is controlled by the strength of ice. The flexural strength of ice is about only a third of its compressive strength, so the ice load of flexural failure is lower than that of the compressive failure. After years of observation and investigation, the concept of using conical structures in ice covered area has been noticed and accepted by many researchers.This paper firstly introduced and summarized the development of researches on ice forces of conical structures. Then, the application of explicit dynamic numerical simulation to the calculation of ice loads on conical structures had been explored according to the mechanics of ice-conical-structure interaction. Furthermore, on the basis of previous study, the effect of conical angle on ice loads will be discussed.