According to the current Rules of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RMRS), the berth-connected ship notation regulates the restrictions on the area of operation of the marine engineering and is characterized only by the minimum requirements of the Rules in terms of strength, stability and other aspects and does not impose special requirements on ice strengthening of the hull. Recently, however, there have been questions of ensuring the ice strengthening of the hull of vessels such as floating terminals for receiving / storing / handling hydrocarbons, which can be attributed to a berth-connected ships and the number of such problems is likely to be increase. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to develop special requirements in terms of ensuring the ice strength of large-tonnage berth-connected ships, which can be introduced into the RMRS Rules.
A probabilistic-deterministic model for assessing ice loads under ice compressions is proposed, on the basis of which recommendations are developed for determining the parameters of ice load on the side structures of a large-tonnage berth-connected ships, depending on ice conditions in the area of its operation. On the basis of the results obtained, a system of ice classes and a system of calculated dependencies for ice loads for large-tonnage berth-connected ships were built, focused on use in the RMRS Rules.
In the context of RS Rules, "berth-connected ship" notation restricts operational area of a ship and is usually assigned to non-self-propelled ships / floating structures anchored in a remoted water area or moored near the coast, up to the indication of exact geographic coordinates of their intended operation site (RS, 2020a). These structures include floating docks, floating hotels and hostels, floating workshops, floating power plants, floating warehouses, floating oil storages, etc. This "berth-connected ship" notation does not imply any additional requirements related to potential use of shore infrastructure. Instead, it only specifies minimum, i.e. the most lenient, requirements of RS Rules to strength, stability and some other aspects.
