Cold Water Explorer Projects

Global Load Testing

The proposed project is designed to study the impact of global loads on various structures such as platforms, loading terminals, tankers and other vessels. This is accomplished by employing an icebreaker of sufficient power to act as a loading device on targeted level ice or a ridge. The vessel impacts the target located near the ice floe's edge perpendicular to its general direction from the side of open water. Over the course of the experiment one can evaluate the loads on the structure from the entire object rather than separately from the non-consolidated and consolidated ice ridge portions. Conducting the experiment under these conditions will allow results to resemble more closely the actual conditions that would result from interaction between a structure or vessel and various ice features.

Other experiments that will be conducted during expedition include running various experiments with icebergs and attempt to influence their trajectory with icebreaker.