New Concepts in Removing Ice

(By Alexander Ierusalimsky, Yury Glebko ; INSROP Working Paper No. 21 – 1995, III.11.1)

The realization of the Project New Concepts in Removing Ice should enable determination of the efficiency of various concepts of ice-breaking and means to augment icebreaking capability, as well as elaborate recommendations on their use in icebreakers and commercial ships designed for Arctic navigation depending ontheir purpose, area and season of navigation.

In the process of work the following was achieved:

• collected and summed up information on new means of ice-breaking contained in patents, inventions, papers, monographs, scientific works, published in Russia;
• new engineering solutions in terms of their purpose and operating principle classified;
• fundamental differences between the main concepts of ice-breaking analyzed;
• degree of practical use of different engineering solutions ascertained.

Based on the patent and information search done, more than 100 engineering solutions were chosen and grouped by purpose and operating principle. That enabled suggesting the classification of new concepts of breaking the ice and clearing the created channel for shipping. All the concepts chosen were also subdivided according to the degree of their realization.

Based on the above objectives, a patent and information search was done. Main concepts were compared with one another and with traditional means of ice-breaking. Auxiliary technical means improving the efficiency of icebreaking with the ship's hull were also covered by the patent and information search.

While selecting inventions and other publications, concepts were taken into account which may be used for navigation and which may be structurally implemented on icebreakers and ice transport ships.

A large group of patents and ideas now available for the protection of fixed offshore drilling units in ice conditions, for ice clearing of parts and other hydraulic-engineering structures, etc. were also studied, but only some few engineering solutions, the application of which is theoretically possible on board ships, were chosen for the purpose of analysis.

One of the important objectives of the survey and classification of new means of ice destruction is to prevent future efforts directed toward reinventing already known methods and constructions.

Alexander Ierusalimsky, Yury Glebko, 1995, New Concepts in Removing Ice, INSROP.©