Ice resistance measurements in ridges with IB APU in the Baltic sea

Ice ridges form a difficult obstacle for ice navigation. Despite this fact, the resistance of ships in ridges has been investigated very little.A trial was performed with the Finnish icebreaker APU (propulsion machinery power of 8·8 MW) in April 1974 in the Baltic, in order to measure its resistance in ridges.Most of the 11 ridges were so massive that the ship could not penetrate through them by a continuous mode, the ramming mode had to be used.When the ship was penetrating a ridge, its speed and the propeller revolutions were registered for determining the resistance. A doppler radar was used for measuring ship spped.In case the ship was stopped in the ridge it was extracted, reversed and accelerated for the next ram. The time history was registered for determining the ship's speed of advance.Before starting a test, the ridge profile above the water level was measured. This was simply done by using a levelling instrument.The main object of the test was to determine the ship's speed of advance. The results, i.e. ice resistance, ship speed and ridge characteristics were analysed on three levels: momentary values average values for rams and average values for a series of rams in one ridge.The test series presented in the article was the first one in full scale in which the speed of the advance of a ship moving by ramming was determined and the ridge profiles were mapped. The measuring system developed worked well. As results the tests gave data of the ship's resistance and of the ship's speed of advance in ridges.