Influence of localized thin areas on the bearing capacity of ice roads in Canada's North

冰路、冰跑道和冰平台为加拿大偏远地区提供了至关重要的通道，为孤立的社区提供补给，并为加拿大的经济增长勘探和开发自然资源。准确地确定这些冰盖的安全承载能力是至关重要的，并与作为设计参数的冰层厚度密切相关。现在，像探地雷达(GPR)这样的技术进步使我们能够在很短的时间内进行数千次冰层厚度测量，而以前的冰层钻孔和人工测量方法所需的时间只有一小部分。尽管探地雷达现在提供了对冰盖厚度剖面的全面了解，但实践标准规定，测量的最小冰层厚度必须是设计中使用的值。使用测量的最小冰厚来计算冰盖的安全承载能力时，没有考虑薄冰区各自的位置、大小或频率。这导致了过于保守的冰盖设计，这对北方的社区和工业产生了不利影响。Nor-ex Ice Engineering Inc.要求了解冰层厚度的变化如何影响冰块的整体性能/承载能力。这一研究项目的结果将使NOR-EX Ice Engineering Inc.能够开发一种方法，从探地雷达数据中使用有效的冰厚度，而不是过于保守的最小冰厚度。

Ice roads, ice runways, and ice platforms provide vital access to remote areas of Canada for the resupply ofisolated communities as well as the exploration and development of natural resources for economic growth inCanada. Accurately determining the safe bearing capacity for these ice covers is critical, and is closelydependent on the ice thickness as a design parameter. Technological advances such as Ground PenetratingRadar (GPR) now allow us to take thousands of ice thickness measurements in a fraction of the time thatprevious methods of drilling through the ice and manually measuring took. Despite GPR now providing acomprehensive understanding of the ice cover thickness profile, standard of practice dictates that the absoluteminimum ice thickness measured must be the value used in design. Using the minimum ice thicknessmeasured for calculating the safe bearing capacity of an ice cover does not consider the respective location,size, or frequency of the thin ice areas. This results in an overly conservative ice cover design, which hasdetrimental effects on communities and industries in the North. NOR-EX Ice Engineering Inc. requires anunderstanding of how variations in ice thickness impact the overall performance/bearing capacity of an iceroad. The results of this research project will allow NOR-EX Ice Engineering Inc. to develop a methodologyfor using an effective ice thickness from GPR data rather than an overly conservative minimum ice thickness.