There are few researches on safety of ships in inland ice area. Ships need to sail in inland ice area during two periods of time each year in Heilongjiang of China. If the floating ice contacts with ship and causes an accident, it will have a significant impact on economy and safety. This paper summarizes the research status of ships sailing in ice area from collision and fatigue of hull, ice propeller interaction, and torsional vibration of propeller shafting caused by ice. By using the research methods of sea-going ships sailing in ice area, this paper aims to provide reference for research methods of inland river ships sailing in ice area.
Heilongjiang is located in northeast of China, the river is in an ice period from November to March of the following year. Due to operational needs, some ships still navigate when the river has just been frozen. Once accidents occur on ships sailing in the ice area, it will bring irreparable safety and economic losses to shipowners and enterprises, and also cause great pollution to the inland river environment. The damaged deck barge after being hit by ice is shown in Figure 1.
This requires inland ships in Heilongjiang area to have extremely strong ice resistance. At present, there have been many research results on sea-going ships, especially polar ships which navigated in ice area. The classification of ice class for sea-going ships is shown in Table 1. Due to natural conditions, the frozen areas of inland rivers in China are only located in northeast region and Mongolia. The southern areas of Heilongjiang Province are treated with a B ice level additional mark, but the northern areas are close to the latitude of Baltic Sea. Therefore, the rivers near boundary with Russia are treated with a B3 ice level additional mark.
