Model-Scale Testing of Icebreaking Pattern and Comparison with State-of-the-Art Method

Icebreaking pattern has been recognized as an important factor in ship ice resistance prediction for decades. It involves the shape and size of ice pieces broken from an intact ice sheet when a ship is going through. For the estimation of icebreaking pattern, various methods were proposed, which could be divided into semi-empirical and mechanics-based theoretical methods. Due to limited availability of data, the validity of these methods has not been systematically evaluated. In order to understand the accuracy of these methods in predicting model-scale icebreaking pattern and find the most applicable ones, a set of model tests was conducted in Aalto Ice Tank. Two Gopro cameras were instrumented at two positions at bow and took videos of the icebreaking process. Image analysis tools are implemented to measure the ice pieces size and shape from the photos extracted from the videos. The measurement results are then compared with selected methods. The accuracy is analysed and discussions on the advantages and shortcomings of each method are presented.