Modeling of Ice Impacts Using Cohesive Element Method: Influence of Element Size

The use of numerical methods is a promising way to solve the problem of assessing ice impacts on structures. Among such methods the finite element method is the most prevalent. In its framework the cohesive element method was used in last years for modeling the destruction of ice and good results were obtained. However, a more thorough study of this approach is required. This article is part of numerical experiments performed to study the cohesive element method for solving ice problems. In this paper, the effect of element size on the result is studied. The principles of creating a numerical model are described and several conclusions and recommendations are made on the discretization of the model into finite elements of various sizes.