Influence of load length on short-term ice load statistics in full-scale

This paper studies the frequency of ice loads of varying lengths and the occurrence probability of their magnitudes in full-scale. In these measurements, the four frames were instrumented with shear strain gauges on the Polar Supply and Research Vessel S.A. Agulhas II. The experiments were carried out on first-year ice in the Baltic Sea. An influence coefficient matrix based on analytical and numerical analyses was used to determine the load length in the horizontal direction. Rayleigh separation was used to define the load amplitudes. The measurements show that the ice loading has to be long in order for the shear-load maximum on a single frame to occur. Furthermore, the statistical study showed that the Weibull distribution gives the best fit to the measured loads on a frame. The probability distribution of the ice loads on a frame is exponential-like for short loads and lognormal-like for long loads.