ICEX: Ice and Climate Experiment. Report of science and applications working group

The Ice and Climate Experiment (ICEX), a proposed program of coordinated investigations of the ice and snow masses of the Earth (the "cryosphere") is described. These investigations are to be carried out with the help of satellite, aircraft, and surface based observations. Measurements derived from the investigations will be applied to an understanding of the role of the cryosphere in the system that determines the Earth's climate, to a better prediction of the responses of the ice and snow to climatic change, to studies of the basic nature of ice forms and ice dynamics, and to the development of operational techniques for assisting such activities in the polar regions as transportation, exploitation of natural resources, and petroleum exploration and production. A high-inclination satellite system with a set of remote-sensing instruments specially tailored to the task of observing the important features of snow, sea ice, and the ice sheets of Greenland and the Antarctic is to be used to record the near-simultaneous observations of multiple geophysical parameters by complementary sensors

Hydrodynamic interaction of wave driven icebergs in close proximity with a fixed offshore structure

Fixed or floating offshore structures and supply vessels in ice prone regions are subject to environmental loading from various forms of glacial ice fragments. Iceberg/bergy bit impact load with offshore structures is an important design consideration but a research gap exists in the study of the viscosity dominated, very near field region, where phenomena such as negative wave drift force (against the direction of propagation of the waves), shadowing, change in added mass, hydrodynamic damping, eccentric impact etc. have been observed in previous studies. In order to better understand and quantify the hydrodynamic effects on small ice masses, a two phase, experimental and numerical, study has been conducted. Physical model experiments were conducted in the Ocean Engineering Research Center (OERC) at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). In the first phase, experiments were conducted to investigate changes in wave loads on ice masses at different separation distances from the structure. The experimental results show that the distance to wavelength ratio dictates the corresponding wave loads in horizontal and vertical directions. The mean drift force in the horizontal direction becomes negative (against the direction of wave propagation) for most cases, when the body is close to the structure. As the body is positioned closer to the structure, the non-dimensional RMS forces in the horizontal direction decrease, and the non-dimensional RMS forces in the vertical direction increase. In the second phase, experiments were conducted to investigate the change in wave induced motions for different sizes of free floating ice masses approaching a fixed structure. The experimental results of motion data show excellent correlation with the force data gathered in the first phase. Similar to previous studies, the separation distance to wavelength ratio is shown to dictate the corresponding wave induced motions. As the body gets close to the structure, the surge motion slows and at the same time the heave motion is increased. Some experiments are also conducted to understand the motion behaviour in irregular waves. The significant wave heights showed a standing wave pattern generated by the superposition of incident and reflected peak frequency wave. Further analysis showed that the significant heave forces and motions will increase and significant surge forces and motions will decrease as the body gets close to the structure. Numerical simulations were conducted using RANS based commercial CFD code Flow3D. Flow3D showed promising results when compared against the force measurements demonstrating the highest and lowest forces at different locations from the structure. For the motion simulations, the velocity changes at node and antinode locations in front of the structure are well captured by the numerical simulations. The challenges lie in the proper modeling of geometry and mass properties of the physical model considering the limitations of computational resources. The simulation results for irregular waves show the capability to simulate random waves and force and motion results in irregular waves are also reasonable showing the expected trends

Planning and evaluation parameters for offshore complexes

Issues are presented for consideration in the planning and design of offshore artificial complexes. The construction of such complexes, their social, economic, and ecological impacts, and the legal-political-institutional environments within which their development could occur, are discussed. Planning, design, and construction of near-shore complexes located off the Mid-Atlantic coast of the United States is emphasized

Geophysics and Ocean Waves Studies

The book “Geophysics and Ocean Waves Studies” presents the collected chapters in two sections named “Geophysics” and “Ocean Waves Studies”. The first section, “Geophysics”, provides a thorough overview of using different geophysical methods including gravity, self-potential, and EM in exploration. Moreover, it shows the significance of rock physics properties and enhanced oil recovery phases during oil reservoir production. The second section, “Ocean Waves Studies”, is intended to provide the reader with a strong description of the latest developments in the physical and numerical description of wind-generated and long waves, including some new features discovered in the last few years. The section is organized with the aim to introduce the reader from offshore to nearshore phenomena including a description of wave dissipation and large-scale phenomena (i.e., storm surges and landslide-induced tsunamis). This book shall be of great interest to students, scientists, geologists, geophysicists, and the investment community

TRIAD - Preliminary design of an operational earth resources survey system Final report

Design of operational earth resources survey syste

Simulation of Ship-wave-ice Interactions in the Arctic

Global climate change is presenting opportunities for new networks of maritime transportation through the Arctic. However, these sea routes are often infested by floating sea ice, which brings uncertainties to shipping operators, designers and builders. This work aimed to develop reliable simulation approaches for shipping scenarios in the presence of sea ice and investigate the associated changes to ship calm water resistance. For this purpose, computational fluid dynamics and ice solid mechanics were combined to model the potential ship-wave-ice interactions. Specifically, models were developed to simulate the two primary scenarios of a cargo ship operating in the Arctic, respectively a waterway with floating ice floes and an open-water channel created by icebreakers. Additionally, to build understanding of the Arctic sea condition, two other models were developed simulating the interaction of ocean waves with a rigid ice floe and then an elastic ice sheet, which provided a new solver capable of modelling hydroelastic fluid-structure interactions. Based on validation against experiments, these models provided the ability to accurately predict the ship-wave-ice interactions and the ice-induced resistance changes. Through conducting a systematic series of simulations, it was found that ice floes can increase the ship resistance by the same order of magnitude as the open water resistance, but this is strongly dictated by the ship beam, ice concentration, ice thickness and floe diameter. An open-water ice channel was found to increase the ship resistance by up to 15% compared to the situation without ice, particularly when the channel width is less than 2.5 times the ship beam and the ice thickness is greater than 5% of the ship draught. Moreover, this work developed a procedure to derive simple ice-resistance equations from the simulation results, enabling fast prediction of ship fuel consumption in sea ice fields and incorporation into a new Arctic Voyage Planning Tool