| Abstract | Grounded spray ice pads have proven to be very suitable as drilling platforms in the Arctic’s shallow marine environment. To better understand the sliding resistance of ice pads, an experimental set-up was devised to measure ice-sand friction coefficients of a large block of saline ice. The experimental arrangement provided a “footprint” of 4 m2 with normal stresses up to 15 kPa. This represents realistic stress states for an ice pad in nature. The ice block was displaced over a distance of 0.12 m, at rates ranging from 0.0025 to 0.3 mm/sec, while recording the load required to do so. The average static and kinetic friction coefficients were 0.47 and 0.37, respectively, with an average cohesion of 0.5 kPa. These values did not vary with displacement rate. Sediment freeze-up at the ice-sand interface increased friction significantly. |
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