Flexural-gravity waves generated by an explosion under an ice sheet are considered. The underwater explosion is modeled by a submerged point mass source. It is assumed that water is an ideal incompressible fluid, and that the motion of the liquid is potential. The ice cover is modeled by an initially unstrained viscoelastic, homogeneous, isotropic plate. The analysis is carried out by using Fourier and Laplace integral transforms. The effects on the ice plate deflection of the basin depth, ice plate thickness and submergence depth of the impulsive source are analyzed.
Ice blasting is recognized as an effective way of destroying ice covers. When the ice cover is ruptured or destroyed by an explosion, it is known that an underwater explosion is more effective (Kozin, 2007). The effect of a singular impulsive load on an ice sheet has been thoroughly in vestigated by Kerr (1976), Fox (1993) and Kheisin (1967), while Lu and Dai (2008) have studied the dynamic responses of an ice-covered fluid of finite depth due to fundamental singularities, particularly the submerged source. Two kinds of unsteadiness were considered: instantaneous and timeharmonic singularities. Solutions were obtained in integral form, but the problem was solved asymptotically only for large time and distance. In the author's opinion, the introduction of a viscoelasticity into the equation for the ice plate permits the numerical evaluation of the modified integral. Thus the aim of this paper is to solve the problem of viscoelastic deflection of the ice plate floating on water of finite depth with an impulsive mass source immersed in the fluid. The solution of the problem will facilitate the search for better techniques for ice-cover destruction or rupturing by means of blasting.
We consider an initially unstrained, homogeneous, isotropic, viscoelastic ice plate lying on an elastic liquid base.
