21

st
IAHR International Symposium on Ice
"Ice Research for a Sustainable Environment", Li and Lu (ed.)
Dalian, China, June 11 to 15, 2012
2012 Dalian University of Technology Press, Dalian, ISBN 978-7-89437-020-4







Cohesive Zone Method Based Simulations of Ice Wedge Bending:
a Comparative Study of Element Erosion, CEM, DEM and XFEM


Wenjun Lu
*
, Raed Lubbad, Sveinung Lset, and Knut Hyland
Sustainable Arctic Marine and Coastal Technology (SAMCoT), Centre for Research-based
Innovation (CRI), Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
*
wenjun.lu@ntnu.no




The ice wedge bending problem is important to study the ice-sloping structure interactions. A lot
of experiments, analytical and numerical solutions have been pursuit in the past decades to study
ice wedge bending related problems (e.g. beam tests, ice bearing capacity experiments, etc.).
Nowadays, due to the advancement in computational mechanics, various numerical methods are
at our disposal to simulate this process into detail according to certain material failure theory, e.g.
the cohesive zone method. This paper tested four available numerical methods combined with
the cohesive zone method in simulating this ice wedge bending scenario. These different
numerical approaches include the traditional finite element method with element erosion
technique, the cohesive element method (CEM), the discrete element method (DEM) with
cohesive contacts and the extended finite element method (XFEM). Based on the simulations, it
is found that all methods can reproduce the bending failure mode but the results are mesh-
dependent due to the presence of material softening. Further information (e.g. strain rate effects)
is needed for a more detailed material constitutive model so as to get a unique solution (i.e.
mesh-independence). Apart from that, among all these numerical methods, the element erosion
technique turns out to be the most efficient method; CEM is capable of capturing a stabilized ice
breaking load but the whole structure appears to be softened with increasing cohesive element
density; DEM with cohesive contact alleviate us from the structural softening problem, but it is
too computationally expensive that only limited simulations and conclusions are made on it;
XFEM is still at its early stage of development, so lots of disadvantages still remains in the
market available implementations. However, it is shown in this study, different from those
920
Cohesive Zone Method Based Simulations of Ice Wedge Bending a Comparative Study of Element Erosion, CEM, DEM and XFEM


discrete fracture approaches (CEM and DEM), that the crack propagation is free from the mesh
bounding thus making this method very promising in the future.


1. Introduction
When level ice interacting with sloping structures, being either icebreakers or other sloping
structures, it is often observed the formation of wedge shaped ice (Kotras, 1983; Lubbad and
Lset, 2010; Valanto, 2001). Similarly, when level ice is suffering from a point load, the first
formation of radial cracks separate the ice plate into several ice wedges before the final loss of its
bearing capacity (Dempsey et al., 1995; Sodhi, 1995; 1996; 1998). Accordingly, it is crucial to
study the failure process of a wedge-shaped ice so as to extract the ice breaking load, ice
breaking length etc., which are important for the forthcoming interaction process.

For the past decades, the ice wedge bending problem has been studied both analytically (see
(Lubbad et al., 2008) for a detailed literature review) and numerically (Derradji-Aouat, 1994;
McKenna and Spencer, 1993; Sawamura et al., 2008). One similarity of all these methods is the
adoption of a continuum approach and focus on the pre-failure process (i.e. when certain failure
criterion is reached, the ice wedge is assumed to be failed instantly). Nowadays, the
advancement in the modern computation capacity empowered us the possibility to utilize more
comprehensive material models to simulate the failure of ice in a progressive failure manner and
the material degradation is thus captured. One of such models, the cohesive zone model,
stemming from the concept of fracture mechanics (Hillerborg et al., 1976) and being able to
simulate the fracture initiation and propagation, is considered as a promising tool in simulating
lots of material failure behaviours. This method enables us to simulate the transition from
continua to discontinua. The failure of the material becomes a natural output during the
simulation. However, this method can be realized by many numerical schemes (e.g. element
erosion technique, cohesive element method (CEM), discrete element method (DEM), extended
finite element method (XFEM), etc.), each of which is flourishing in their respective academic
fields. Konuk et al. (2009) qualitatively reviewed the implementation of the cohesive zone model
with several numerical methods. The application of the cohesive zone model in ice structure
interaction problems has been realized by CEM (Grtner, 2009; Grtner et al., 2010; 2008;
Konuk and Yu, 2010) and DEM (Paavilainen et al., 2011).

Instead of directly embarking on a global ice structure interaction simulation, the current paper
focuses on evaluating these numerical methods with a relatively simple numerical set-up. This is
to simulate the ice wedge bending in a progressive failure manner with either ABAQUS-
6.11/EXPLICIT or ABAQUS-6.11/STANDARD. The evaluation criteria will be set on the
ability of each method to:
get stable solution in describing bending failure of the ice wedge;
robustly simulate the progressive failure process which is highly nonlinear due to the
material softening;
have satisfying efficiency.

It should be noted that this paper focuses on the evaluation of different numerical methods. The
investigation of a suitable ice material model is so far out of the scope of this paper. Relatively
921


simple constitutive models (e.g. linear elastic, homogeneous, isotropic, and perfect plastic
material model) are utilized in most of the simulations, except otherwise stated. And the cohesive
zone method takes care of the ice material's post-failure behaviour. However, convincing, robust
and effective constitutive models for different ice features are of great importance. This will be
set as a future work combined with one of the numerical method from this paper.

The arrangement of this paper is as following: First, the numerical set-up and the cohesive zone
model will be briefly introduced. Then each numerical method (i.e. the element erosion
technique, CEM, DEM, and XFEM) will be introduced separately together with their bending
simulation results. Since material softening is very notorious for mesh objectivity, the effort was
later spent on the mesh sensitivity study of each numerical method. In the end, conclusions are
made based on the numerical test results.
2. The Numerical Set-up and the Cohesive Zone Model
2.1 The Numerical Set-up
The target of this paper is to simulate the bending failure of a wedge shaped ice with different
numerical methods. Different from previous simulations, a contact scenario is set up in this study
to obtain the boundary condition of the ice wedge in this study. A pressure-over closure
relationship is assumed to simulate the possible crushing of the ice before it fails in bending.
Similar as in (Lu et al., 2012), the slope of this pressure-over closure relationship is tuned such
that the crushing depth is no more than the ice thickness and then kept constant in all numerical
tests. The wedge angle in this study is chosen as 45, similar as in (Lubbad et al., 2008;
McKenna and Spencer, 1993). Regarding the length of the ice wedge, according to (Sodhi, 1996),
in ice bearing capacity problems, both observation and numerical results show that the radial
cracks propagate no more than two times of the characteristic length L
c
. While McKenna and
Spencer (1993) utilized 4 times L
c
as the ice wedge length in their simulation. Derradji-Aouat
(1994) and Lubbad et al. (2008) simulated ice wedge with length 96 metres and 300 metres,
respectively. In the current study, in order to make a compromise between calculation efficiency
and accuracy, a length slightly larger than 4 times the L
c
length was chosen for the geometry of
the ice wedge. Most geometry parameters and material constants are set similar to (Lubbad et al.,
2008) as shown in Table 1.

The structure that has contact with the ice wedge is a conical structure with a sloping angle of
45. This conical structure is assumed to be fixed. The influence from its response on ice is thus
neglected. The overall numerical set up is shown in Figure 1. In order to highlight the
investigations of different numerical methods, the fluid base in the current study is simply treated
as elastic foundations with constant hydrodynamic coefficients as in (Lubbad et al., 2008). A
FORTRAN user subroutine was implemented in ABAQUS-6.11/EXPLICIT to simulate the
elastic foundation. This user subroutine has been validated against the elastic foundation
algorithm within ABAQUS-6.11/STANDARD. Both the commercial elastic foundation code
with IMPLICIT solver and self-programmed elastic foundation code with EXPLICIT solver
tender almost the same results. For a further detailed treatment of the fluid base including
hydrodynamic effects under the same numerical set-up, see (Lu et al., 2012c).


922


Table 1. General inputs for the simulations.
Young's Modulus E : 3.5 GPa
Possion ratio : 0.3
Density of ice
i
:
900
3
kg/m
Density of ice
w
: 1025
3
kg/m
Ice wedge thickness h : 0.3 m
Ice wedge angle: 45
Added mass coefficient for the
elastic foundation:
1.23
Hydrodynamic damping coefficient
for the elastic foundation:
1.0

Ice wedge length L :
is chosen as 40 m since
1
4 4 4 30m
c
w
D
L
g
= =
with
3
2
12(1 )
Eh
D

Figure 1. The numerical set-up illustrations.
2.2 The Cohesive Zone Model for Ice
The cohesive zone model is essentially a conceptually simple way to describe the criteria of
fracture initiation and how the crack propagates according to the evolving traction and separation
relationship. This method was first introduced by (Hillerborg et al., 1976) to simulate the brittle
failure of concrete and termed as the fictitious crack model. The main assumption is the
existence of a cohesive zone in front of the crack tip and a cohesive law which is assumed to be a
material property that governs crack's initiation and propagation. Experiments are necessary to
obtain this cohesive law before any meaningful simulation. With respect to ice, Mulmule and
Dempsey(1999; 2000; 1998) back-calculated the cohesive law with a Mode I fracture energy of
15 N/m. For simplicity, as in (Paavilainen et al., 2009; 2011; 2010), a linearly softening law is
assumed in the current study together with this reported cohesive fracture energy.
3. Evaluation on Different Numerical Methods
Based on the previous established numerical set-up and adopted cohesive zone model, this
section tests different numerical methods with a set of evaluation criteria. The basic theory of
923


each numerical method will first be presented together with the bending simulation results.
Following that, the mesh sensitivity study is presented.
3.1 Numerical Methods Introduction and Bending Failure Reproducibility
All the numerical methods that have been tested are conceptually introduced in this section. For
detailed formulation of these numerical methods, one is strongly encouraged to the relevant
references. After the basic introduction of each method, they are tested to see if the bending
failure scenario could be reproduced numerically. In order to capture the bending failure of the
ice wedge, the shell element is chosen for discretization. Moreover, in order to more precisely
capture the contact algorithm, the continuum shell element with modified Mindlin-Reissner
assumption (Belytschko et al., 2000), is adopted in all the simulations except for the XFEM
where the enrichment was applied to the first order continuum elements. Before starting with the
mesh sensitivity study of each method, the first question to be answered is how many layers of
such continuum shell/continuum elements are required to capture the ice wedge's bending failure.
Therefore, in the numerical tests, the number of the element layers in the ice thickness direction
is first set as a variable. Global horizontal loading histories are extracted for each method so as to
identify the required number of element layers to reproduce the stabilized bending failure
process.
3.1.1 Element erosion technique
The element erosion technique can be viewed as the most 'engineering' and widely utilized
approach to simulate the material failure. The concept is rather simple. Before the initiation of
damage, the material is modelled as a continuum following certain constitutive models. When a
certain failure criterion has been reached, material degradation (softening) occurs. A damage
variable is usually assigned to describe the evolution of such material degradation. Usually,
when the material is fully damaged (i.e. the damage variable equals to 1), the corresponding
element is deleted from the finite element mesh. Thus a crack is explicitly modelled. To sum up,
there are three important ingredients in this technique, saying: 1) the constitutive model, which
describe the stress-strain relationship, the yield criteria and the flow rule (if with the presence of
plasticity); 2) the damage initiation criteria and 3) the damage evolution law. In the current paper,
the hyperbolic Drucker-Prager plasticity model is serving as the material constitutive model in
the element erosion technique. As shown in Figure 2, the hyperbolic Drucker-Prager model is a
modification of the linear Drucker-Prager model by introducing a tension cut-off
t
p and
approximates the original yield function hyperbolically (see the yield functions shown in Figure
2). By assuming the tensile strength and compressive strength of ice in uniaxial test to be 500
kPa and 1000 kPa, respectively, the input parameters for the yield function are as shown in
Figure 2.

Furthermore, when the yield criterion is reached, the material is assumed to follow a perfect
plasticity flow rule before the damage initiation criteria is reached. In analogy to the
consideration of bulk dissipation combining with cohesive zone method (Baant and Planas,
1998), the damage is assumed to initiate when the equivalent plastic strain is 30% of the elastic
924


strain. Regarding the damage evolution law, it follows the cohesive zone model, which is
essentially a softening curve describing the softening behaviour during material degradation.


Figure 2. The Drucker-Prager plasticity model.

' d equals to 600 kPa; represents the internal cohesion term in the Drucker-Prager
criterion;
equals to 45; represents the friction angle;
tr( ) / 3 p = is the hydrostatic part of the stress tensor ;
3
2
q = S : S
is the equivalent Mises stress with S being the deviatoric part of the stress
tensor ;
t
p is assumed to be half the uniaxial tensial strength (250 kPa) since no triaxial
tensile strength data for sea ice are available;

Based on the trial simulation, it is found that when more than 4 layers of the continuum shell
elements are used, the loading history tends to converge as shown in Figure 3(b). It can also be
seen from Figure 3(a) that the crack is formed by eroding the damaged elements from the mesh.


Figure 3. Illustration of the simulation results based on the element erosion technique. (Left:
visualization of the ice wedge breaking with damage variables; Right: Bending failure tests with
different layers of continuum elements)
925


3.1.2 Cohesive element method
The cohesive element method is implemented by specially discretizing a continuum into the
traditional bulk elements with a stress-strain constitutive relationship and the cohesive element
with the constitutive relationship described by the cohesive law. The virtual form of its
expression can be found in (Ruiz et al., 2000; Xu and Needleman, 1994). In the finite element
framework, if the crack is not known in advance, the cohesive elements are usually inserted
along the boundaries of all the bulk elements. Since the cohesive zone model is taken care of by
the cohesive elements, the bulk elements can be modelled in a rather simplified fashion. In this
model an elastic-perfect plastic model is adopted to model the bulk element. The major challenge
of CEM is the convergence issues. The mesh sensitivity of the cohesive element methods with
application in ice structure interactions has been studied in (Lu et al., 2012) and will not be
repeated here. In the current study, a Matlab code was developed to generate a mesh with an
infinitesimally thin layer of cohesive elements along all the boundaries of the bulk elements.
However, with such pre-inserted cohesive elements everywhere, it is pointed out by (Klein et al.,
2001; Zhou and Molinari, 2004) that the elasticity of the cohesive elements alters the elasticity of
the whole structure and a penalty based approach is proposed by (Diehl, 2008a; 2008b) to obtain
the stiffness of the cohesive elements. However, since the current paper focuses on evaluating
various numerical methods at its very 'raw' form, any remedies to its shortcomings are not further
explored here.


Figure 4. Illustration of the CEM simulation results. (Left: visualization of the ice wedge
breaking with the CEM simulation; Right: Bending failure tests with different layers of
continuum shell elements)

The simulation was first run with different continuum shell element layers. The visualization and
simulation results are shown in Figure 4(a) and (b). It can be seen that the CEM method capture
the bending failure fairly well when more than 3 layers of continuum shell elements are utilized.
The loading histories also tend to converge when more layers of continuum shell elements are
used. For the thickness direction, it appears that the mesh dependency does not occur in this
numerical test.
3.1.3 Discrete element with cohesive contact
Paavilainen et al. (2009; 2011; 2010) applied the concept of combined finite element and discrete
element method to simulate the ice fracturing and rubble accumulation. When ice rubbles formed,
926


the discrete element method stands for a potential candidate to capture the ice accumulation and
clearing process. In their model, the discrete elements are connected with beam elements
following a cohesive law during the damage process. Motivated by this methodology, a discrete
element method together with a cohesive contact algorithm is applied in this study. Conceptually,
it is a rather simple method. Within the system, any two neighbouring discrete elements are
following a special contact algorithm. This contact is hard contact under compression, i.e. inter-
elements penetration is not allowed in compression. While in tension, loads transferred through
the contact are initially elastic. However, when the crack initiation criterion is reached, the
contact stiffness is weakened in such a way that the stress and separation follow the cohesive law.

Moreover, based on lots of trial simulations and previous discrete methods experiences (Dorival
et al., 2008; Schlangen and Garboczi, 1997), a critical damping is introduced in the numerical
algorithm. Accordingly, before damage initiation, the tensile contact interactions between any
two discrete elements are in analogy to interaction of two bodies tied by springs and dashpots. It
should be noted that, different from the traditional discrete element method, the bending
deformation is mainly captured by each single element (in the current case, the continuum shell
element). Each single element is modelled with a linear elastic constitutive model. A Matlab
code was developed to generate these discrete elements and assign each two of them such
cohesive contacts as input file for ABAQUS 6.11/EXPLICIT. The challenge with this method is
the identification of the contact stiffness (i.e. the relationship between the traction and
separation). Based on lots of trial simulations, it is found that the contact stiffness greatly
influences the simulation results. Large contact stiffness leads to 'explosive' results. The cohesive
contact in the current study is formulated in an uncoupled way as shown in the following
equation

n n nn
s ss s
tt t t
t K
t K
K t

= = =



t K [1]

where t is the traction vector in the normal n direction and two orthogonal shear directions ( s
and t ). is the separation in the corresponding direction. Since the ice material model in the
current study is assumed to be isotropic and homogeneous. The contact stiffness tensor reduces
to K = K 1 , in which only one parameter is to be identified. Based on energy balance, the
following equation in a uniaxial loading case stands:

( ) ( ) ( ) A L TA = [2]

On the left hand side, A represents the force in the cross section, L is the displacement. L is
the specimen size. On the right hand side, TA is the traction force while is the separation
displacement. When in tension, we simply have T < >= = which leads to

L = [3]

which corresponds to the definition of an engineering strain. When introducing Young's modulus
E and contact stiffness K , the above equation can be reformulated into
927



T
L
E K

= [4]

which eventually leads to

E
K
L
= [5]

It is shown in Eq. [5] that the contact stiffness is related to the specimen size. This definition is
similar to the stiffness of the cohesive elements. The choice of L is crucial in this study to adjust
the contact stiffness. If L is chosen as the element size, larger contact stiffness is obtained and
the simulation becomes 'explosive'. Since in one direction, there will be only one major crack (i.e.
the circumferential crack) at concern, it is therefore reasonable to choose L as the size of the ice
wedge. Accordingly, based on the loading direction and element position, different contact
stiffness is obtained following the above equation and assigned to the corresponding element-to-
element contact. By doing so, stabilized solutions are obtained as shown in Figure 5(a). A
simulation with different layers of continuum elements to simulate bending failure is also
presented in Figure 5(b). It is worth mentioning that this method is very computationally
expensive. Three layers of continuum elements overload the cluster with 12 CPUs. However,
seen from the current available results, especially with two and three continuum element layers,
the loading history shows some resemblance to each other, implying that convergence is possible.


Figure 5. Illustration of the simulation results of DEM with cohesive ties. (Left: visualization of
the ice wedge breaking with contact damage variables; Right: Bending failure tests with different
layers of continuum shell elements)
3.1.4 Extended finite element method (cohesive segment method)
The above introduced CEM and DEM with cohesive ties manage to model the crack in a discrete
fashion, i.e. the crack can only exist along discrete boundaries of the bulk/discrete elements.
Accordingly, these methods are, in their geometrical representation, mesh dependent. The XFEM
method, as a mesh free method, theoretically allows the simulation of arbitrary cracks. A
928


Heaviside enrichment term was introduced in the formulation so as to capture the displacement
jump across the crack line (ES et al., 1999). As shown in Eq. [6],


,
1
( , ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
d j
m
I j
j
X t X t H X X t

=
= +

u N u N a [6]

where u represents the field displacement with the spatial position X at time t . N(X) is the
traditional shape function interpolating the nodal displacement u
I
(t). Comparing with traditional
FEM method, the XFEM method has an extra second term on the right hand side of the above
equation. A displacement jump is described by introducing the Heaviside function H
dj
(X) at
discontinuous boundary
d
. And a
j
(t) contains all the additional nodal degree of freedom
associate with the discontinuity
d
.

The XFEM method enables a way to incorporate the discontinuities (cracks) in the finite element
formulation. Yet we still need a method to quantify the crack initiation and propagation. The
cohesive zone method can then be introduced in the XFEM framework and thus leads to the
cohesive segment method (Deborst, 2003; Remmers et al., 2003). Though elegant in theory,
implementation of the XFEM with cohesive zone method still poses several challenges.


Figure 6. Illustration of the XFEM simulation results. (Left: visualization of crack propagation
inside the damaged element; Right: Bending failure tests with different layers of continuum
elements)

The cohesive segment method is implemented in ABAQUS 6.11/STANDARD (implicit solver)
with only first order continuum elements and second order tetrahedral elements. Therefore even
more layers of continuum elements are required to reproduce the bending failure scenario. For
calculation considerations, in the current simulation, the ice wedge was separated into three parts,
as shown in Figure 6(a). The first part close to the structure is discretized with relatively fine
continuum shell elements. The second part in the middle is assumed to be the crack initiation and
propagation region. Therefore it is meshed with multi-layers of continuum elements with
929


enrichment. The third part is the far end part, which is meshed with continuum shell elements
with a relatively coarse mesh. A Matlab code is developed to generate this special mesh in the
current study.

During the numerical tests, it is found that this method is very sensitive to the tolerance of the
crack initiation's numerical error. Since the cohesive segment methodology is selected in the
current study, it has been assumed that the crack initiates when traction in any elements reaches a
critical threshold (e.g. 500 kPa). However, the incremental nature of the FEM formulation and
numerical scheme usually leads to some elements' stresses outcome are way beyond this
threshold during some critical calculation steps. Stress inside an element larger than the threshold
is physically prohibited. This means that the stress cannot go beyond the fracture surface.
Therefore, more numerical iterations are required to bring the calculated stress down to the
fracture surface with certain numerical error tolerance (by default 5%). The conflicts here is that,
if a high tolerance is used, multiple cracks initiate in the enriched region which leads to
numerical difficulties due to a large amount of additional degree of freedoms; if a low tolerance
is used, crack can localize, but at the costs of calculation efforts and further numerical
convergence difficulties. Therefore, a compromise has been made in the current study. Instead of
starting from an initially flawless ice wedge, an infinitesimally shallow (half of the element size)
crack is introduced in the upper surface of the ice wedge. The position of the crack is determined
such that the ice breaking length equals to the results given previously by the element erosion
technique.

The introduction of an initial crack localizes the 'initiation' of crack even with a relatively larger
numerical error tolerance. The simulation becomes stable and the propagation of crack is not
bound to the mesh of the ice wedge, e.g. as shown in Figure 6(a), the crack separate the original
intact ice element into two. The same bending simulation tests also show that the global
horizontal loading history resembles each other with the tested number of layers as shown in
Figure 6(b).
3.2 Mesh Sensitivity Study
Based on the criteria set forth previously, it appears that all methods are capable of predicting the
bending failure mode when sufficient layers of elements are utilized. The next stage of the
investigation is to identify the mesh sensitivity of each method. However, it should be stressed
that the simulation results by different numerical methods are not yet comparable since different
material models are implemented. For the current study, the focus is on the mesh sensitivity
study of each numerical method, rather than on the loading history comparisons among different
methods.

In the current numerical set-up, as shown in Figure 7, there are three spatial directions where the
element size variations are expected. However, when investigating the bending failure
reproducibility, the thickness direction mesh sensitivity has already been tested under a different
name. In this section, the mesh sensitivity investigation mainly focuses on the mesh size
variation in the circumferential and radial directions.

930



Figure 7. Mesh sensitivity tests in three directions of the wedge.
3.2.1 Mesh sensitivity tests in the circumferential direction
By gradually refining the mesh size in the circumferential direction, the loading histories
obtained by each method are illustrated in Figure 8. It can be seen from the figure that with the
CEM simulation, the structural stiffness decreases with increasing refinement. This is in
agreement with the conclusion that pre-inserted cohesive elements soften the whole structure
(Klein et al., 2001; Zhou and Molinari, 2004). Thus some remedy measures must be taken before
the CEM simulation could be trusted. Regarding other numerical methods, before breaking, the
overall stiffness remains almost the same with different circumferential refinements. In the post-
failure regime, the element erosion technique presents results with finer mesh and differs from
those with relatively coarse mesh. A scrutinization into the numerical animation shows that the
element erosion technique with finer circumferential discretization fails in a different manner.
This leads to its change in the post-failure loading curve. The DEM and XFEM offer a better
post-failure behaviour in the current study.


Figure 8. Loading history with different circumferential direction refinements. (Element erosion
technique (a); CEM simulation (b); DEM with cohesive contact (c); XFEM simulation (d))
931


To sum up, except for CEM, all other methods show relatively good mesh objectivity in the
circumferential direction before breaking occurs. DEM with cohesive contact and XFEM appear
to give satisfactory mesh objectivity in the post-failure loading history.
3.2.2 Mesh sensitivity tests in the radial direction
The loading histories based on each numerical method with different radial mesh sizes are shown
in Figure 9. It appears that the radial direction mesh size tends to cause the largest discrepancy.
This makes sense since the crack is mainly formed circumferentially and therefore influenced by
the radial mesh size. For element erosion technique, the ice wedge failure pattern (e.g. number of
radial cracks) differs quite a lot with different mesh size, thus leading to large loading history
discrepancy. Regarding the CEM simulation, it is again observed the structural stiffness
softening with increasing cohesive element density. But one advantage of this method is that the
peak ice breaking loads do not deviate too much from each other with radial mesh refinement. In
terms of the DEM simulation with cohesive contact, quite large discrepancy is observed under
different radial mesh refinement. However, due to computational burden, only a small amount of
simulation with rather coarse mesh is conducted here. This method might be able to give
relatively better solution if a finer mesh is used. But for the time being, it is not promising due to
the burdensome contact algorithm between all neighbouring elements.


Figure 9. Loading history with different radial direction refinements. (Element erosion technique
(a); CEM simulation (b); DEM with cohesive contact (c); XFEM simulation (d))

As far as XFEM based simulations are concerned, although theoretically claimed to be a mesh
free method, its application to the current ice wedge bending case with the ABAQUS-
932


6.11/STANDARD implementation seems to be mesh dependent. This might partly be due to the
less suitability of the implicit algorithm comparing with the explicit algorithm to simulate such a
transit, contact involved and dynamic governed physical process; and also possibly due to the
limitations of XFEM's implementations within ABAQUS-6.11/STANDARD; one more reason is
due to the material softening implementation in the simulation. Considering relatively good
results were obtained in the thickness and circumferential direction, the first two reasons are
supposed to contribute to minor mesh sensitivities. Therefore, the material model with softening
emerges as the major culprit for mesh sensitivity.

To sum up, all these numerical methods exhibit mesh dependency with varying radial mesh size.
The structural stiffness softening is also observed with varying radial mesh size in the CEM
based simulation. While the CEM based simulation has an advantage over other methods in the
way that the peak ice breaking loads stay rather stable with varying mesh size. Still, further
remedies are needed in order to alleviate the mesh sensitivity issue.
3.3 Discussions about the Numerical Tests
In the very beginning, three criteria have been established to evaluate these four numerical
methods. Regarding bending failure reproduction, all numerical methods have passed with
varying degree of soundness.

As for mesh sensitivity study, based on the numerical test results with varying mesh size in
different direction, it is shown that the radial mesh size causes the most mesh sensitivity for all
the numerical methods. This is to say, at least in one case, that all the above numerical
simulations are mesh-dependent (including mesh free method). Accordingly, two possible
originations of the mesh sensitivity could be thought of.

The first possibility is due to the numerical methods that we choose, e.g. discrete cracks can only
propagate along the boundaries of the bulk elements in the CEM and DEM methods. To address
this type of mesh sensitivity, a vast literature regarding possible measures to alleviate the mesh
sensitivity of each numerical method is available, e.g. non-local approach formulation for the
element erosion technique; non-intrinsic cohesive elements insertion dynamically for CEM, etc.

Another possibility is due to the material model implemented in the simulation. This has been
pointed out by (Borst, 2004) that the reason for not converging is not due to traditional numerical
discretization, but due to the change of nature of the partial differential equation (PDE) when
material softening occurs. The solutions of the PDEs are not unique, thus refining the mesh leads
to no-unique results. Therefore, the mesh sensitivity is in its nature not a numerical problem but a
mathematical problem due to material softening. Several approaches have been proposed to
alleviate the mesh dependency problem with regard to the material softening issue, e.g. the
introduction of strain rate consideration. This will be combined with a future study in terms of
finding a suitable material constitutive model.

In terms of calculation efficiency, it is found out that the element erosion technique is the most
effective method; the CEM comes next, following which stands the XFEM. The DEM with
933


cohesive contact is the most computationally expensive method among these four. Each method
has their own advantages and disadvantages. The application of each method is largely
dependent upon the simulation purpose and care should be taken to each numerical methods'
pros and cons before implementation.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, four different numerical methods are combined with the cohesive zone method to
simulate the progressive failure process of an ice wedge bending problem. The ice bending
failure scenario is reproduced by all the numerical methods. Following that, the mesh sensitivity
of each numerical method is further scrutinized by comparing the loading history with varying
mesh size. It is found that all methods are mesh-dependent due to the presence of material
softening. Apart from that, advantages and disadvantages of each method are identified and
listed below:
Element erosion technique:
This method offers the most computationally effective simulation. However, this method
is largely dependent upon the applied constitutive model. Therefore, a constitutive model,
which is capable of describing the anisotropic, pressure dependent, and strain rate
dependent, etc. natures of ice, is crucial for the correctness of this method. Numerically,
the 'creation' of crack is achieved by deleting relevant elements. This brings about a
disadvantage of mass imbalance. Especially considering the ice accumulation load covers
a major part of the total ice load in terms of ice-sloping structure interactions (LU et al.,
2012), necessary remedies are required (e.g. the model update technique implemented in
(Kolari et al., 2009))
CEM and DEM with cohesive contacts:
These two methods are geometrically discrete approaches to simulate the fracture
initiation and propagation. The potential cracks are predefined to be along the
bulk/discrete elements' boundaries. Accordingly the cracks' initiation and propagation are
simulated in a 'controlled' manner. Therefore, one advantage of this method is that a
largely simplified material constitutive model can be applied to the bulk/discrete elements.
By doing so, much less burdensome numerical and experimental tests are required to
construct a sound material constitutive law that include most important aspects of the ice
material's behaviours. Another advantage is that the crack is formed by deleting the
infinitesimally thin cohesive elements, thus no mass imbalance problem involves in these
two approaches. However, the existence of cohesive elements alters the structure's overall
stiffness. The DEM with cohesive contact, though has no problem with structural
softening, is very computationally expensive. Further remedies are required before the
implementation of these methods.
XFEM:
This method is very promising in simulating the crack initiation and propagation
problems due to its mesh-free nature. However, this method is still at its developing stage.
Thus most of its disadvantages still exist in most market available implementations. In
the current study, challenges in the localization of fracture initiation are encountered.
Further, since only limited element types are equipped with the enrichment application, a
934


non-uniform meshing strategy (meshed with both continuum elements and continuum
shell elements) is adopted in the current study to capture both cracks and bending failure.

Therefore, each of the above method has its own advantages and disadvantages. Its application
mainly is determined by the problem to be solved. Moreover, remedies to the numerical methods
are always needed before any convincing results are obtained.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Norwegian Research Council through the project
200618/S60-PetroRisk and the SAMCoT CRI for financial support and all the SAMCoT partners.
Further, we acknowledge Prof. O. Hopperstad, Prof. A. Metrikine, Prof. J. Tuhkuri and Mr. T.
Nord for valuable discussions, criticism and constructive suggestions.

References
Baant, Z. P., Baant, Zdenk P., and Planas, J., 1998. Fracture and size effect in concrete and
other quasibrittle materials. CRC press, 616 pp.

Belytschko, T., Liu, W. and Moran, B., 2000. Nonlinear finite elements for continua and
structures. John Wiley and Sons, NJ, USA, 666 pp.

Borst, R. D., 2004. Damage, material instabilities, and failure. In: Erwin Stein, Rene de Borst
and T. J. R. Hughes (Editors), Encyclopedia of Computational Mechanics. John Wiley
and Sons, NJ, USA.

Deborst, R., 2003. Numerical aspects of cohesive-zone models. Engineering Fracture Mechanics,
70(14), 17431757.

Dempsey, J., Slepyan, L., and Shekhtman, I., 1995. Radial cracking with closure. International
journal of fracture, 73(3), 233261.

Derradji-Aouat, A., 1994. Ice loads on conical piers-a finite element investigation. International
Journal of Offshore and Polar Engineering, 4(1), 5361.

Diehl, T., 2008a. On using a penalty-based cohesive-zone finite element approach, Part I: Elastic
solution benchmarks. International Journal of Adhesion and Adhesives, 28(4-5), 237255.

Diehl, T., 2008b. On using a penalty-based cohesive-zone finite element approach, Part II:
Inelastic peeling of an epoxy-bonded aluminum strip. International Journal of Adhesion
and Adhesives, 28(45), 256265.

Dorival, O., Metrikine, A. and Simone, A., 2008. A lattice model to simulate ice-structure
interaction. Cell, 2, 3.

935


ES, N. M. O., Dolbow, J., and Belytschko, T., 1999. A finite element method for crack growth
without remeshing. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, 46,
131150.

Grtner, A., 2009. Experimental and Numerical Investigations of Ice-Structure Interaction. PhD
thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.

Grtner, A., Bjerks, M., Forsberg, J., and Hilding, D., 2010. Numerical modelling of a full scale
ice event. Proceedings of the 20
th
IAHR International Symposium on Ice, Lahti, Finland.

Grtner, A., Konuk, I. and Lset, S., 2008. A computational cohesive element model for the
simulation of ice drift on arrangements of ice protection piles. Computers and Structures.
(submitted)

Hillerborg, A., Modeer, M., and Petersson, P. E., 1976. Analysis of crack formation and crack
growth in concrete by means of fracture mechanics and finite elements. Cement and
concrete research, 6(6), 773781.

Klein, P. A., Foulk, J. W., Chen, E. P., Wimmer, S. A. and Gao, H.J., 2001. Physics-based
modeling of brittle fracture: cohesive formulations and the application of meshfree
methods. Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics, 37(13), 99166.

Kolari, K., Kuutti, J., and Kurkela, J., 2009. Fe-simulation of continuous ice failure based on
model update technique. Proceedings of the 20
th
International Conference on Port and
Ocean Engineering under Arctic Conditions, Lule, Sweden.

Konuk, I., Grtner, A., and Yu, S., 2009. A cohesive element framework for dynamic ice-
structure interaction problemsPart II: Implementation. Proceedings of the 28
th

International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, Honolulu, Hawaii,
USA, 185193.

Konuk, I., and Yu, S., 2010. A cohesive element framework for dynamic ice-structure interaction
problems - Part III: Case studies. Proceedings of the 29
th
International Conference on
Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, 4, 801809.

Kotras, T. V., 1983. Predicting ship performance in level ice. SNAME, 91, 329349.

Lu, W., Lset, S., and Lubbad, R., 2012. Simulating ice-sloping structure interactions with the
cohesive element method. Proceedings of the 31
st
International Conference on Ocean,
Offshore and Arctic Engineering, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (submitted)

Lu, W., Lset, S., and Lubbad, R., 2012c. Ventilation and backfill effect during ice-structure
interactions. Proceedings of the 21
st
IAHR Symposium on Ice, Dalian, China. (accepted)

936


Lubbad, R., and Lset, S., 2010. A numerical model for real-time simulation of ship-ice
interaction. Cold Regions Science and Technology, 65(2), 111127.

Lubbad, R., Moe, G., and Lset, S., 2008. Static and Dynamic Interaction of Floating Wedge-
Shaped Ice Beams and Sloping Structures. Proceedings of the 19
th
IAHR Symposium on
Ice, Vancouver, Canada, 179189.

McKenna, R., and Spencer, D., 1993. Ice wedge dynamics and local crushing, Proceedings of the
12
th
International Conference on Port and Ocean Engineering under Arctic Conditions,
Hamburg, Germany, 8596.

Mulmule, S., and Dempsey, J., 1999. Scale effects on sea ice fracture. Mechanics of Cohesive
Frictional Materials, 4(6), 505524.

Mulmule, S., and Dempsey, J., 2000. LEFM size requirements for the fracture testing of sea ice.
International Journal of Fracture, 102(1), 8598.

Mulmule, S., and Dempsey, J. P., 1998. A viscoelastic fictitious crack model for the fracture of
sea ice. Mechanics of Time-dependent Materials, 1(4), 331356.

Paavilainen, J., Tuhkuri, J., and Polojrvi, A., 2009. 2D combined finite-discrete element method
to model multi-fracture of beam structures. Engineering Computations, 26(6), 578598.

Paavilainen, J., Tuhkuri, J., and Polojrvi, A., 2011. 2D numerical simulations of ice rubble
formation process against an inclined structure. Cold Regions Science and Technology,
68(12), 2034.

Paavilainen, J., Tuhkuri, J. T., and Polojarvi, A., 2010. Rubble pile formation against an inclined
structure-analysis of simulation results. Proceedings of the 20
th
IAHR Symposium on Ice,
Lahti, Finland.

Remmers, J. J. C., Borst, R. D., and Needleman, A., 2003. A cohesive segments method for the
simulation of crack growth. Computational Mechanics, 31(12), 6977.

Ruiz, G., Ortiz, M., and Pandolfi, A., 2000. Three-dimensional finite-element simulation of the
dynamic Brazilian tests on concrete cylinders. International Journal for Numerical
Methods in Engineering, 48(7), 963994.

Sawamura, J., Riska, K., and Moan, T., 2008. Finite Element Analysis of Fluid-Ice Interaction
during Ice Bending, Proceedings of the 19
th
IAHR Symposium on Ice, Vancouver,
Canada, 239250.

Schlangen, E., and Garboczi, E., 1997. Fracture simulations of concrete using lattice models:
computational aspects. Engineering Fracture Mechanics, 57(23), 319332.
937


Sodhi, D. S., 1995. Breakthrough loads of floating ice sheets. Journal of Cold Regions
Engineering, 9(1), 422.

Sodhi, D. S., 1996. Deflection analysis of radially cracked floating ice sheets. Proceedings of the
15
th
International Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, 4, 97102.

Sodhi, D. S., 1998. Vertical penetration of floating ice sheets. International Journal of Solids and
Structures, 35(3132), 42754294.
Valanto, P., 2001. The resistance of ships in level ice. SNAME, 109, 5383.

Xu, X. P., and Needleman, A., 1994. Numerical simulations of fast crack growth in brittle solids.
Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 42(9), 13971434.

Zhou, F., and Molinari, J., 2004. Dynamic crack propagation with cohesive elements: a
methodology to address mesh dependency. International Journal for Numerical Methods
in Engineering, 59(1), 124.

938