Research on ice-breaking characteristics of underwater explosion bubbles based on an effective coupled model

The use of underwater explosion bubbles for ice breaking represents an efficient technological advance that is critical for polar exploration. In this paper, we propose an effective numerical methodology for investigating this pertinent issue. By combining the advantages of peridynamics and the Eulerian finite element method, we establish a coupled model for investigating the integral ice-breaking characteristics of underwater explosion bubbles. Our model is capable of accurately simulating the formation of bifurcated ice cracks and capturing the evolution patterns of both ice cracks and crushed ice under various complex working conditions. When the extreme standoff parameter is set to zero, multiple crushed ice formations are effectively generated during contact explosion, and the changes in the height and width of this crushed ice exhibit a predominantly increasing trend over time. Furthermore, our results elucidate the destructive mechanism of the bubble jet on the ice structure. We find that when the initial bubble does not have a strong destructive effect, the jet’s impact becomes more pronounced. The conclusions from this study offer valuable technical support for real-world polar exploration problems.