Numerical estimation of ship resistance in broken ice and investigation on the effect of floe geometry

In this paper, a numerical model based on the non-smooth discrete element method is presented to investigate the effect of ice floe shape on ship resistance under low-concentration broken ice condition where ice fields consist of relatively small and unbreakable floes. The accuracy of the numerical model is validated by the comparison with a series of experiments conducted by the authors with artificial ice floes made from polypropylene (PP) material. The mean ice resistance estimated by the numerical model is in fairly good agreement with both the experimental results and those from the existing semi-empirical formulas. Additionally, the floe shape effect captured in the experiment, i.e. “rectangle-like” floes results in higher resistance than “elliptic-like” floes, is also predicted by the numerical model. Then, the validated numerical model is used to further investigate the effect of floe shape on ship resistance. It has been found that the rectangle floe results in higher ice resistance than other studied floe shapes. The ratio between the maximum and minimum caliper diameters of floe shows little influence on the ice resistance of ship. Finally, the effect of ice thickness on the ice resistance is also discussed.