Simulation of a ship operating in an open-water ice channel

Abstract

Modern ice breakers, using new technology, are now able to create channels through level ice and clean out the ice fragments, resulting in an open-water channel between two large ice sheets. Whilst this negates the potential resistance increase on a following vessel due to interacting with the broken ice pieces, the ship performance will still be influenced by the two large ice sheets on either side. The effect of such ice sheets on ships has to date not been studied in detail, so the channel effect is usually ignored during ship design processes and power estimates. The present paper reports on work to develop a computational model to simulate a ship advancing in an open-water ice channel and investigate the associated ship-wave-ice interaction. Based on a series of simulations, this work how the ship resistance and wake change with ship speed, channel width and ice thickness.