Surge motion of an ice floe in waves: comparison of theoretical and experimental models

TL;DR

This paper compares a theoretical and experimental model of ice floe surge motion in waves, revealing the models' accuracy varies with wavelength, and identifies a regime change in surge amplitude.

Contribution

It introduces a modified Morrison's equation for small floating bodies and validates it against scaled experimental data.

Findings

The theoretical model is accurate at large wavelengths.

Experimental data shows a surge amplitude regime change at twice the floe diameter.

The theoretical model is inaccurate at small wavelengths.

Abstract

A theoretical model and an experimental model of surge motions of an ice floe due to regular waves are presented. The theoretical model is a modified version of Morrison's equation, valid for small floating bodies. The experimental model is implemented in a wave basin at scale 1:100, using a thin plastic disk to model the floe. The processed experimental data displays a regime change in surge amplitude when the incident wavelength is approximately twice the floe diameter. It is shown that the theoretical model is accurate in the large wavelength regime, but highly inaccurate for the small wavelength regime.