PHYSICAL SIMULATION OF ICE FLOE IMPACT FORCES ON PILE STRUCTURES OF WHARFS

The coastal ice floes in Bohai have smaller kinetic energy, and there are only drive impact forces on structures because they have slow speed and small size. In order to obtain the suitable designed ice forces on pile structures of wharfs in Bohai coastal area, a series of physical simulation tests were performed by using ice floes impact on the piles of a wharf model with a certain floe speed in a water flume, and the impact forces on a single pile or piles simultaneously were obtained. The experimental results indicate that the upper limit values of the impact forces increase with the increase of compressive strength and kinetic energy of the floes, and tend to a certain force. Based on fitting approaching, the statistical relation among the upper impact forces acted on the single pile, the floe kinetic energy and its peak compressive strength are obtained. The statistical relation combining the floe size, thickness, density, speed, peak compressive strength with the upper impact forces together can consider as the basement of a design ice force on a single pile in coastal ice engineering. In addition, the impact force on a pile and the composition of forces on piles in an element of a wharf structure is evaluated following the test results based on the ice conditions in the area of a designed wharf construction in Bohai Sea.