News in Press-centre

The Ice Mechanics winter school participants in Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) conducted more than 1,500 experiments with sea ice. On the final day, the young researchers presented the results of the tests made at the open testing site on Russky Island and in the laboratories. The participants received certificates in confirmation of the successful passing the unique in Russia course.

This year the Ice School in FEFU became truly international, bringing together young researchers from Russia, China, India, the Republic of Korea, Norway, the UK, and Japan.

“Our school has two key tasks: educational and scientific. On the one hand, we teach to work with ice and to better understand its properties—this is the main reason the international participants visit us,” says Alexander Becker, Director of the FEFU School of Engineering. “On the other hand, we conduct real research—simulate ice breaking processes for further design of marine engineering structures.”

The Ice Mechanics School was opened on December 13th with the series of lectures in English by the leading academics of the School of Engineering and the guest speaker Anatoly Polomoshnov, Hydrometeorology Chief Expert at Rosneft-Shelf-Arctic LLC. Participants learned about the classification, physics and properties of sea ice, its impact on offshore structures—platforms, pipelines and ships—also about the features of oil and gas offshore field development in freezing seas.

Having mastered the theory in the classroom, the students moved to the practical study of ice. Part of the tests was performed directly in Novik Bay: the participants cleaned the ice, evaluated the heterogeneity of the surface, and measured the strength of natural material per the specific procedure. At the same time, cylindrical shaped samples (cores) were collected at the open test site for their further detailed study in the laboratory.

In total, the School participants investigated nearly 25 tons of sea ice by conducting over 1,500 experiments on the surface of Novik Bay of Russky Island and in the laboratory. In the university laboratories, they studied the samples for salinity, density, heterogeneity, the structure, the direction of growth and size of the ice crystals as well as compressive and bending strength. The most spectacular experience was the compression test, carried out on the special test unit made by Shimadzu Corporation.

The participants presented the analysis of experiment results in their progress reports on the final day of the Ice School. According to Alexander Becker, Director of the FEFU School of Engineering, the data collected will complement the base of the research, which the university scientists are conducting in modelling process of breaking the ice for the design of marine engineering structures. The fourth winter Ice Mechanics Workshop School is scheduled for the beginning of 2018—organizers promise more practice and more experiments with sea ice.