A skewed movement of large-size ships in “narrow” ice channel
This work investigates a previously unknown phenomenon taking place when a large carrier ship moves in a channel made by an icebreaker narrower than the carrier ship. Usually, the studies of these movement conditions assumed the center line of the ship to coincide with the channel axis and the interaction of ship sides with channel edges to be symmetric. However, the observations made in Ice Basin and in real conditions have shown that in most of cases interaction of ship sides with channel edges is not symmetric. The ship moving in the channel breaks ice only with one of her sides, the other side only rubbing against the edge. The numerical assessments of ship position stability in the channel given in this paper made it possible to understand how this interaction becomes asymmetric. The study also yielded ice resistance assessments for a large carrier ship moving along the channel in these asymmetric conditions.