Investigations on the ship-ice impact: Part 1. Experimental methodologies

In the structural design of the Polar Class ships, glancing impact with ice has been considered as the governing load scenario for dimensioning the bow structure. At present, non-linear transient dynamic analysis has been reckoned as a fundamental requirement in the assessment of the structural strength of ships with higher ice classes. Under such requirement, understanding of the dynamic characteristics of the ship-ice impact load appears significant importance. The present study aims to investigate the spatial and temporal variations of the impact loads by simulating the glancing impact events between a polar research vessel and giant ice floes in ice tank. The ship-ice impact loads were recorded by a grid-based tactile sensor attached on the bow area of the model ship. To achieve a reasonable simulation on the design scenario described by the IACS Unified Requirements for Polar Class Ships (UR I), a series of methodological calibration tests were preliminarily carried out to determine the key parameters that should be carefully monitored and controlled, accompanying with thorough discussions on the ship-ice impact process. This paper provides detailed information on the preliminary methodological calibrations and the tactile data processing techniques, including the identification of the ship-ice contact area, the depiction of the ice loading trail and the outline of the spatial distributions of local ice pressures. A companion paper provides detailed analyses and discussions regarding the spatial and temporal variation of the ice impact loads from the formal tests based on the proposed testing procedures obtained by the methodological calibrations.