Analysis Of Ice Loads On Offshore Structures With DEM Simulations

Recent years, as the oil and gas development gradually comes to cold regions, the ice ocean engineering gets more and more attention. Whether can the offshore structure in cold regions can work safety is one of the most import aspect that people care. For this reason, the offshore structure ice load and the influenced factors of the ice load should be deeply studied.The interaction between sea ice and offshore structure is a complex process. Both sea ice property such as the ice type, ice strength, ice thickness, ice speed and the structure property such as shape, size, stiffness can effect the result, In this paper, the status of study for ice-structure interaction is introduced firstly in the test research, theory research and numerical simulation research. Then the theory, failure mode and mechanism are analyzed and the feature of the ice-structure interaction is described.The physical and mechanical properties of sea ice are introduced. The influences of sea ice density, salinity, temperature and brine volume for sea ice mechanical properties are explained. The main mechanical parameters:the compressive strength, flexural strength and shear strength for the sea ice dynamic processes are studied.The discrete element method is introduced and the leve ice model including contact model, bonding model, failure model and the structure model is given to simulate the interaction between level ice and offshore structure. Using this model, the HSVA cone test, the Jz20-2cone and the ice breaker are simulated. The influence of sea ice thickness,speed and temperate on ice load is discussed.Finally, some problems in the DEM simulations of ice loads on offshore structures are discussed.