Anisotropic Sea Ice Indentation in the Creeping Mode

An orthotopic elastic-power law creep model for sea ice is presented and then a finite element method of analysis is developed and applied to study the effect of sea ice anisotropy on indentation in the creeping mode. Numerical simulations are performed under plane stress conditions to predict the influence of interface adfreeze and friction, variability in parameters of a transversely isotropic material model for sea ice, rubble pile or grounded ice foot, and ice sheet velocity on global forces and local pressures generated on a rigid cylindrical indenter. The results are compared with those from an approximate method of analysis based on the upper bound theorem. Interface pressure distributions are obtained in addition to contours of stress and strain.