Investigation of Ice Specimens Reinforced in the Middle Section with Thin-Walled Pipes Made of Polymeric Materials

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the construction of road crossings on the territory of the Arctic shelf and the Extreme North (Far North), as well as on the Siberian and Far Eastern rivers in winter. That is going to contribute to reducing logistic costs from cargo shipping down the ice surface significantly. In this research, the authors examine ice-based composites, where thin-walled polyvinyl chloride pipes are placed in the middle of the sample cross-section as a reinforcer. Two types of pipes were tested: vent white and orange sewer (drain) ones. While doing several series of model experiments, the researchers find out that the load-bearing capacity of ice samples reinforced with these pipes show very much the same results. So it was decided to combine the averaged model experiments with these pipes into one concluding result. The mechanical characteristics of ice were figured out by crushing samples of ice prisms that are 60 cm long, with a cross-section size of 15x15 cm. The aim of the paper is to define the influence of thin-walled polyvinylchloride pipes on the plastic properties and load-bearing capacity of ice samples when they are being reinforced. The test results prove that when reinforced with a pipe, it is destructed more gradually, and the deformations before the destruction have greater values. However, the thin-walled SN2 and SN4 pipes add nothing to increasing load-bearing capacity, unlike the SN8 sample, which increased the load-bearing capacity by about 10%. Therefore, the reinforced mid-section of ice samples with thin-walled PVC pipes marginally increased the plasticity of the samples, without the marked increase in the load-bearing capacity.