Comparative Study of Ice Gouge Simulation Considering Ice Keel-Seabed Interactions

Abstract

The ice keel gouge and seabed interaction is one of the major considerations in the design of an Arctic pipeline system. Ice keel and seabed interaction engineering models based on experimental data, which give an explicit equation for estimating the ice gouging depth, have been suggested. The suggested equations usually overestimate the ice keel gouging depth. In addition, various types of numerical analyses have been carried out to verify the suggested engineering model equations in comparison to the experimental data. However, most of numerical analysis results were also overestimated compared with the laboratory experimental data. In this study, a numerical analysis considering the contact condition and geostatic stress was carried out to predict the ice keel gouging depth and compared with the previous studies. Considering the previously mentioned conditions, more accurate results were produced compared with the laboratory experiment results and the error rate was reduced compared to previous numerical analysis studies.

Keywords

• ice gouge
• ice keel
• ice keel-seabed interaction
• cel(coupled eulerian lagrangian) method
• arctic pipeline