Topic outline


  • Sea areas for planned wind energy harvesting in the Northern Baltic Sea (left) and satellite picture of the same area during winter (right).



    This course focuses on sea ice loads on structures and on ice behavior and failure during ice loading. The course provides the basic knowledge necessary for understanding ice loads on off-shore structures.
 The course includes lectures and exercises. 
The course is aimed for master's level students in mechanical and civil engineering, but other students are welcome as well. The students are, anyhow, assumed to have prior knowledge knowledge on solid mechanics. Taking course "MEC-E4001 Ice Mechanics" before this one is recommended, but not obligatory.

    Intended learning outcomes: After this course the student will have basic understanding on:

    • Mechanics related to ice induced loads in different loading scenarios: loads due to intact sea ice, loads due to ice ridges and ice rubble, ice breaking process and ice-induced vibration. 
    • Analytical and statistical models, and standards related to ice loads on off-shore structures and in ice breaking process. 
    • Basics of numerical modeling of ice loads on off-shore structures and in ice-breaking process. 
    • Full- and model-scale experimentation on ice induced loads.

    Study material: Course material includes lecture notes and parts of the books: On Sea Ice (Weeks, W.F., 2010. University of Alaska Press) and Arctic Offshore Engineering (Palmer, A., Croasdale, K., 2012. World Scientific). You can find these as e-books from Aalto library pages. We will also use scientific journal and conference articles, and some other material discussed and handed out during the course. 

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