Features of Tabular Iceberg Towing

Abstract

Some features of the movement of tabular icebergs during their towing are examined. A tabular iceberg towed in the Barents Sea in 2017, for which surveys of the underwater and surface parts were carried out, was selected for the analysis. As a result of numerical and physical modeling, the hydrodynamic characteristics of the iceberg were obtained for different motion courses; good convergence of the results of these methods was achieved. To determine each component, the numerical simulation, based on the equations of a viscous fluid motion, was carried out. Turbulent fluid flow is described by the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes and continuity equations. The k – (cid:151) SST turbulence model is used to simulate turbulence. Numerical differentiation of the equations was performed in the open-source computational fluid dynamics software Open-FOAM. It is shown that the iceberg has several positions of stable and unstable equilibria in terms of the rotation around a vertical axis, and the influence of an iceberg’s orientation on additional resistance during rough seas is considered. Obtained results may be used in planning tabular iceberg towing in different regions of the world, as well as in further studies of iceberg behavior under load.