Author(s): Kennon D. Vaudrey; Michael G. Katona

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Abstract: In recent years, operational use of ice-covered waters in polar regions has greatly increased to coincide with the advent of a world­wide energy crisis. No longer can remote polar locations be considered too inhospitable or uneconomical to search for or harvest energy resources. In particular, Naval operations continue to depend on sea-ice airfields and roads to provide heavy cargo and logistics support for United States activities. Therefore, a better understanding of the behavior of sea-ice sheets under aircraft and vehicular loading is required to ensure continued safe operations. To this end, the Civil Engineering Laboratory (CEL) was initially engaged in performing experiments and developing analyses, assuming sea-ice sheets behave elastically. The culmination of this elastic-properties research on sea ice was the development of an elastic finite element computer code, having the capability of modeling temperature-dependent properties as a function of ice sheet thickness. The following discussion presents a brief description of the finite element formulation implementing linear viscoelasticity and its associated assumption and limitations.

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Year: 1975