Designing offshore platforms in ice-prone regions presents a unique engineering challenge. The design basis must reflect when, where, and how the platform or vessel will operate, considering varying exposure to sea ice and icebergs. While risk mitigation strategies can reduce design forces, these strategies must be carefully aligned with operational constraints and environmental realities to ensure safe and effective performance throughout the asset’s lifecycle.
C-CORE supports the full project lifecycle for bottom-fixed and floating offshore structures – from early-stage concept development and pre-FEED through to detailed design, installation, and operations. We develop site-specific sea ice and iceberg design bases using our proprietary ILSTM and SILSTM software, and we perform structural and mooring load assessments alongside hull design verification for ice impacts through advanced non-linear finite element analysis.
Our simulation capabilities include dynamic ice-structure interaction modeling using our DYNIISTM platform, which accounts for 6- and 12-degree-of-freedom motions to capture real-world behavior. To further improve design accuracy, we have also developed a novel methodology for modeling the joint probability of ice and wave loading, enabling more reliable and efficient design solutions in harsh offshore environments.
Complementing our ice engineering expertise, C-CORE brings strong geotechnical capabilities for both offshore and onshore applications. Our 5.5 m, 200 g beam centrifuge is used to create scaled physical models that replicate complex soil-structure interactions, including anchor capacity, pipeline and frost heave behavior, pile foundations, and slope stability. We also conduct advanced numerical analyses to evaluate the deflection, resistance, and ultimate capacity of seabed-embedded structures such as wellheads and conductors.
This integrated approach ensures that our clients receive robust, validated, and practical design inputs – minimizing risk and maximizing performance in some of the world’s most demanding environments.
