Numerical simulations for plates under ice impact based on a concrete constitutive ice model

Polar ships and offshore platforms frequently experience floating ice impacts or iceberg collisions in Arctic region, which may cause permanent deformations of plates, resulting in negative effects on their work performance. The modeling of ice material is critical and difficult point to study the ice-structure interaction. This paper proposes a new ice material model based on a soil and concrete material model (MAT 78) with some user-defined ice material curves applied, to simulate the ice mechanical behavior in an ice-plate impact scenario. Calibration of the proposed ice material model is performed by comparing the pressure-area relationship recommended by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) rules. Using this proposed ice model, numerical simulations are conducted to study the dynamic behavior of plates under ice impact by using LS-DYNA finite element program. The related model tests were also performed to verify the accuracy of the results calculated by numerical method. Besides, a series of numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the influences of initial ice impact kinetic energy and ice impact momentum on ice-plate impact. The maximum plastic deformations of plate, energy absorption of plate and energy dissipation of ice damage during the ice impact process are studied in these numerical simulations.