Estimation of Local Ice Pressure Using Up-Crossing Rate

Ice load estimation is required in the design of ships and offshore structures for arctic and subarctic conditions. This paper focuses on the estimation of local ice pressures. The “event-maximum” method for local ice pressure analysis is a probabilistic method based on the maximum pressure of a given event; other local peaks in the data are not included. To study how this may affect local ice pressure estimates, a new probabilistic method based on the up-crossing rate was developed. Field data from 1982 Polar Sea arctic trials in the Beaufort Sea are processed as a time series. Up-crossing rates at different local pressure levels are obtained for local areas of interest. A relationship between up-crossing rate and local pressure-area results is established. Results from the analysis of full-scale data using the event-maximum method are presented for the selected data set; a more comprehensive set of results for the analysis of available ship-ice interaction data is presented in a companion paper. For a sample case, local ice pressure estimates obtained using the up-crossing rate method are compared with results obtained using the event-maximum method. The local pressure-area relationship is found to be similar for both the up-crossing rate method and the event-maximum method. For design curves based on the data set considered, estimates using the event-maximum method were more conservative than those obtained using the up-crossing rate method. The up-crossing rate approach is promising; analysis of additional data sets is recommended to allow broader comparison of the methods.