Structural analysis for ships in arctic conditions

Ships are operating in regions with seasonal ice coverage outside the Baltic Sea. Due to the lack of experience operating in regions such as the Arctic Sea, existing design guidelines may not lead to reliable and safe ships. This article summarises regulatory aspects of ship design for ice-covered waters, focusing on structural compliance and design ice load determination. The latter will be obtained using a probabilistic approach and compared to the current rule-based load. Based on the discrepancy and the existence of ice induced damage, different measures aimed at mitigating damage are presented. Furthermore, the influence of sub-zero temperature (SZT) in a collision scenario on the material response is presented.