FORMATION, BEHAVIOUR AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ICE

Flexure failure of the consolidated layer on conical structures may result in either pile-up of broken ice rubble in front of the structure or ride-up of the consolidated layer on the slope of the cone. These phenomena can increase the load significantly and affect the failure mechanism of the ice. For the last eight years, there has been a full-scale in-situ monitoring Programme to examine the interaction between ice features and the Confederation Bridge piers (Brown, 2006). Using the data from the Confederation Bridge Monitoring Programme, observations pertaining to rubble pile-up and ride-up will be presented. The study concentrates especially on the effect of ice velocity, consolidated layer thickness, keel depth and slope angles of the pile-up and ride-up on the height of interaction of both phenomena. A detailed statistical analysis has been carried out, resulting in relations between the dependent and independent variables