Ice-Water-Gas Interaction during Icebreaking by an Airgun Bubble

Abstract

When an airgun releases high-pressure gas underwater below an ice plate, it is observed that a bubble is formed rapidly while the ice plate is broken fiercely. In order to study the ice-water-gas interaction during this transient and violent phenomenon, a set of laboratory-scale devices was designed and a series of icebreaking experiments were carried out. High-speed photography was used to capture the evolution of the bubble and the ice plate. It was found that the airgun bubble had a unique ‘pear’ shape compared with the spherical bubble generated by electric sparking. The pressure induced by the pulsation of the airgun bubble near a rigid wall was measured by the pressure sensor. The initial shockwave, oscillatory pressure peaks caused by the directional fast air injection, secondary shockwave, and pressure peak caused by the bubble jet impact were clearly recorded. Three damage patterns of ice plates were observed and corresponding reasons were analyzed. The influence of dimensionless parameters, such as airgun-ice distance H and ice thickness T, was also investigated. The physical mechanism of ice-water-gas interaction was summarized.

Numerical Simulation of Icebreaking by Underwater-Explosion Bubbles and Compressed-Gas Bubbles Based on the ALE Method

“…The data on high-pressure bubbles were obtained from the air gun bubble icebreaking mechanism experiment conducted by Wu, a member of our research team [20]. The experimental test was conducted as follows: a spherical compressed gas with an internal pressure of 1.52 Mpa and a radius of 0.012 m was used with a fixed rigid board was placed on the surface and the compressed gas was placed 0.052 m below the center of the rigid board.…”

“…The rigid board was replaced by an ice plate constructed from FEM meshes, and two simulations were carried out to verify the validity of the numerical model. The experiment conditions from Wu were set as follows: H = 0.53, T = 0.27; H = 0.59, T = 0.17 (H = ℎ/𝑑𝑑 𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚 , T = 𝜕𝜕/𝑑𝑑 𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚 , where h is the distance between the lower surface of the ice plate and the upper surface of the exhausting port; t is the ice thickness; and 𝑑𝑑 𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚 is the maximum bubble diameter) [20]. The simulation conditions were set as follows: bubble internal pressure was P0 = 1.40 Mpa; burst distance hdeep was selected as 49.18 mm; ice thickness tice was selected as 12.30 mm; the ice plate radius was 190 mm (H = 0.8, T = 0.21); the bubble internal pressure was P0 = 5 Mpa; burst distance hdeep was 36 mm; ice thickness tice was 15 mm; and the ice plate radius was 190 mm (H = 0.4, T = 0.17) for the numerical simulation.…”

“…They summarized four damage mechanisms of the ice under different parameter combinations and the influence of initial ice plate defects on the icebreaking effect of high-pressure bubbles. Wu [20], part of this paper's research team, investigated the effect of the dimensionless parameter of the high-pressure air gun on the icebreaking of high-pressure bubbles with high-pressure air gun icebreaking experiments. All the above studies prove the feasibility of high-pressure bubble icebreaking and analyze the parameters that affect high-pressure bubble icebreaking.…”

Researches on the continuous-wave infrared laser-assisted-load icebreaking

“…Recently, high-pressure bubbles have emerged as a novel ice-breaking method owing to the ability to combine multiple loads to produce destructive effects. Currently, the research on icebreaking through the generation of high-pressure bubbles via electric sparks [7][8][9][10] and high-pressure air guns [11] is still in its infancy. Despite advancements made in the existing research, the maximum thickness of ice-breaking by high-pressure bubbles is only 46 mm.…”

A Review of Ice Deformation and Breaking Under Flexural-Gravity Waves Induced by Moving Loads

“…Consequently, researchers are constantly exploring new meth-ods to improve ice-breaking ability. Many new ice-breaking methods have been proposed, including the use of explosions (Wang et al, 2022), high-pressure air-gun bubbles (Wu et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2023), high-speed water jets (Yuan et al, 2022;Yuan et al, 2023), moving loads (Zemlyak et al, 2023;Zhou et al, 2023), etc. Among these new ice-breaking methods, breaking the ice by utilizing a moving load has the advantages of high efficiency and cleanliness.…”