Numerical Simulation of the Ice Breaking Process for Hovercraft

A hovercraft can adapt to an ice area, open water, land and other environments, owing to its unique hull structure. It also plays an important role in transporting supplies, rescuing people, breaking ice and conducting other tasks. Ice load prediction is very important for structural safety and navigation of a polar ship, especially in design of air cushion icebreakers or ice breaking platforms. In this paper, based on a simplified circumferential icebreaking pattern, the icebreaking force of the hovercraft operating on the ice sheet at low speed is simulated in a numerical way. Numerical analysis of the icebreaking process with different ice thicknesses and bending strengths are performed. The numerical results are compared with model test data in a time domain for three operating cases. By analyzing the average ice force, the errors between numerical simulation results and model test measurements are less than 30%. The present study is significant for the preliminary design of new icebreaking hovercraft and it assists the operation possibility for existing hovercraft.