instead of smash with big ice-breaker, how about saw and remove ice?

Maybe you could finance an ice breaking operation by selling Artic ice cubes to the uber wealthy.

 

I'm not worried about the saw freezing from cutting ice, per se. I would be worried about creating excessive new ice from bringing up water into cold air because the saw will be partly in the water. Might thus be key to regulate saw position such that it doesn't cut through the last couple inches of ice.

Instead of depositing ice blocks up on field, it might take less energy to shove them under the field but would they stay put long enough to freeze into place.

What sort of application could there be for low cost, slow, but able to travel through the thickest ice contraption?
Maybe Gas and Oil geo-mapping where they want to "ping" every 10 miles or so and it takes time to set up each ping.
Maybe working around Arctic offshore rig where they need to place anchors, etc or keep an ice field from pushing the rig out of position.

 

Make an energy analysis and then your proposal can be discussed intelligently.

 

How about using rugged surface cracking unmanned submarine device(s) (which can sink/ surface) and can be moved to a position in front of the bow and underneath the ice? What kind of volume and (pointed wedge?) shape would be required to do such a thing- if it is even possible, with such thick ice? Of course you want to avoid punching a hole in the ship! It might be lighter and more compact if super rugged inflatable bags could be used instead...
Pardon my delusions , haha.

 

sure, no problem.

Icebergs (and I assume icefields) are like almost 90% UNDERWATER, and it makes nearly zero diff if you shove them just barely underwater, or shove them down 100+ft underwater, as far as the amount of buoyancy you must overcome.
So for the lifting VS submerging, you've got a roughly 10 to 1 energy savings AND hopefully, a 90+% savings in needed grappling equipment strength because you are just pushing some mildly buoyant objects around underwater VS juggling them around in mid air and needing to deal with their full weight.

Also, the blocks own weight is likely to cause structural failure if hauled out of the water and attempted to manipulate. Ice blocks of dozen tons or more breaking in half during some on-deck handling operation could be problematic.

Noted German film maker Leni Riefenstahl was able to restart working behind the camera when elderly by SCUBA diving, since when under water a heavy camera doesn't take same strength to operate.

 

Now I'm thinking of giant "pizza cutters" with giant axe blades on arms that would split ice into standard size blocks which would then being shoved under the ship then off to the sides underwater to hopefully quickly attach to underside of ice field. Generally the idea being that in theory, much less energy would be needed if the material is only cut on the minimum amount of cuts, rather than lots of unneeded smashing material into smithereens.

If you need to fit a 2x4 into a short garbage can it will take less energy with a saw than a belt sander.

 

You have a very active imagination, Squidly, which is good, but the physics of the situation seems to favour using the momentum of the ship being converted into downward force on to the ice, and there are tens of thousands of continuous hp going into keeping that process going, any mechanical contrivance being used to slice and dice the ice sheet, as you propose, would be something to behold, if it was using that kind of power input, and the ship still has to be driven forward regardless of how the ice is dealt with. Let's assume they know what they are doing, doing it the way they do.

 

I’d think that with the massive amounts of heat produced by a nuclear power plant, superheated seawater could be used to cut the ice, or weaken it to the point of being breakable by ordinary means.

 

That is not correct. You need to calculate the energy necessary to move the ice, not simply make wild claims. There is no such an engineering unit as "mildly buoyant" . Your claim of 10 to 1 energy savings is meaningless unless you can show some energy used calculations, which you have none.

 

I'm not sure if any of the nuclear icebreakers have ever been "iced in", but if they do, call squiddly in, with the super extra-long chainsaw and grapple !

 

opposite of "very buoyant" "• Cork is a very buoyant material. •" https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/sentences-with-the-word/buoyant.html
What do various degrees of buoyancy mean? Does a submarine sink but also float at the same time??? Would a helium balloon be considered "over 100% buoyant"?
In engineering and navel architecture, you can consider materials or objects as mildly, very etc bouyant based on a subjective and "in context" % of their buoyancy VS their mass or weight. Cork is "very buoyant" because small mass to buoyancy due to low density. Ice would be mildly buoyant because of high mass to buoyancy %. It floats but just barely.

 

Thats another issue with "conventional" atomic icebreakers. Sure they might be fine for taking a convoy of ships from one open waters to another, no stopping allowed, but what about Gas and Oil work where might be lots of "get there, stop for couple days, then need to go couple miles". I wonder if icebreakers have Self Break Out procedures maybe dropping bow and stern anchors repeatedly to get enough clear space for running start, and side to side ballast flooding.

 

Seems to me the idea of breaking the ice is overrated.

Flying above it seems much better.

Don't throw spears!

 

I am thinking something like a chev camaro that transforms into a giant robot that can run in front of the ship smashing the ice with his giant steel fists.

 

on a serious note, i thought ice breakers broke the ice by riding up on it and using the ships weight to break it. not by smashing into it. maybe i am wrong.