Simultaneous ice crushing failure on narrow and compliant structures

Simultaneous crushing failure of ice sheet was observed in the field test of Bohai Sea. The ice force time histories from load panels on the jacket platform indicates that during quasi static loading and ice induced self excitation, local crushing ice forces increase and decrease concurrently. Subsequent study shows that the local crushing ice forces correlated with each other very well, which concludes that the contact between ice edge and vertical structure was full, in other words, ice sheet tends to fail in ductile manner. Since previous study has proved that quasi static loading and ice induced self excitation correspond with ductile and ductile-brittle transition failure of ice respectively, which means that simultaneous failure exists on narrow and compliant vertical structures, and the peak ice pressure on this type of structure must be higher than that of traditional calculations based on non-simultaneous failure. Key word: Ice crushing; Simultaneous failure; Narrow structure; Compliant structure; Peak ice pressure