Investigation of practical methods to assess the bearing capacity of ice covers under static loads

虽然冰是土木工程应用中遇到的最复杂的材料之一，但冰盖具有 在施工和各种现场作业期间，长期以来被证明是有效和经济的支撑载荷 （冬季道路、海上平台、飞机跑道、钻机和起重机等）。除了可以直接在 冰结构不会对环境造成持久影响，因为它们通常在春季自然融化， 夏天然而，安全的冰上作业需要足够的冰盖厚度来适当地支撑 施加固定或移动的载荷。这种承载力应严格使用有效的 考虑季节性施加的严格时间限制的方法。考虑到这一点， 频繁的短期和长期温度变化，其中部分原因是全球气候变化。 建议的研究工作的目的是确定冰盖的承载能力，受到可变的短， 长期荷载和各种边界条件。目前，冰盖的承载能力是 通过应用几十年来开发的经验或近似分析公式进行评估 前（Westergaard 1948，Wyman 1950，Meyerhof 1962，Nevel 1965等）。虽然这些分析方法 在过去的50多年里，为该行业提供了良好的服务，需要改进的分析或数值工具， 考虑到新的可用建模技术。这些更新的工具还将有助于更好地评估 与全球气候变化影响和新的安全性有关的冰盖承载能力 北方项目的要求。还需要更先进的方法来利用冰盖 作为当前和未来北方项目的工作平台。在此背景下，本研究项目 将为工业合作伙伴提供最先进的实用数值建模技术， 评估冰盖的承载能力，以满足其冰工程项目所需的冰上安全作业要求。

While ice is one of the most complex materials encountered in civil engineering applications, ice covers have long been proven effective and economical in supporting loads during construction and various field operations (winter roads, offshore platforms, airstrips, drill rigs and cranes, etc.). In addition to being directly available on site, ice structures have no lasting environmental impacts as they generally melt naturally during spring and summer. However, safe on-ice operations require a sufficient ice cover thickness to appropriately support applied stationary or mobile loads. This bearing capacity should be determined rigorously using efficient methods that account for seasonality-imposed strict time limitations. This is even more critical considering frequent short- and long term temperature variations, part of which are due to global climate change. The proposed research work aims at determining the bearing capacity of ice sheets subjected to variable shortand long-term loading and various boundary conditions. Currently, the bearing capacity of ice covers is evaluated by applying empirical or approximate analytical formulations which were developed several decades ago (Westergaard 1948, Wyman 1950, Meyerhof 1962, Nevel 1965, etc.). While these analytical solutions have served the industry well for the past 50 plus years, improved analytical or numerical tools are needed to account for new available modeling techniques. Such updated tools would also enable a better assessment of the bearing capacity of ice covers in relation with impacts of global climate change and new safety requirements for Northern projects. More advanced methods are also required for utilizing ice covers more effectively as a working platform on current and future Northern projects. In this context, this research project will provide the industrial partner with state-of-the-art practical numerical modeling techniques to efficiently assess the bearing capacity of ice covers for safe on-ice operations required in their ice-engineering projects.