A Numerical Method for Ice Resistance Calculation of Polar Ships Navigating in Floating Ice Region

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical method for forecasting the ice resistance of polar ships navigating in floating ice region. The finite element method is adopted to analyze the interaction between ship and floating ice including the coupling effect between ice and water. Based on the comparison between the sea ice test data and the numerical simulation of the ice model, it is verified that the numerical method can successfully simulate the characteristics of sea ice materials. The accuracy of the numerical method is validated against ice tank model test. By using this method, the resistances of a polar ship navigating in floating ice region with different ice coverage rate (60%, 70%, 80% and 90%) at different speeds are calculated. The results show that the ice coverage rate has a great influence on the ice resistance, and the ice resistance varies with ship speeds.