Hemp Reinforced Ice Bridge design for HS20 Design Load

Overview

Ice bridges are important in Alaska and are required to move large amounts of materials across rivers. Currently ice bridges are built by finding the minimum ice thickness to safely transport the designated load. Twenty Seven ice beams reinforced with hemp were tested to failure in a three point bending test. Nine of the beams contained hemp rope on the tensile side. A Finite Element Analysis (FEA) model was constructed to determine the forces and stresses of an ice sheet on an elastic (water) foundation loaded with an HS-20 design load. Testing of the ice beams showed that the ice reinforced with hemp fibers has a much higher bending capacity than unreinforced ice. This bending capacity was further increased with the addition of hemp rope. The results of the FEA model and ice beam tests were used to design a sample ice bridge reinforced with hemp fibers that supports an HS-20 design load. This design shows that a reinforced ice thickness of 1’-6” could support an HS- 20 load with a factor of safety (FS) > 2. Whereas a design with unreinforced ice would require an ice thickness of 2’-6” under the same design assumptions.

Competition history

• JSHS 2020 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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