Ice jams and ice dams in rivers will cause significant rises of water levels. Under extreme conditions, the ice flooding during winter or early spring may occur. In this paper, by considering the fluid-solid coupling effect caused by the water and the ice cover, the mechanisms of the mechanical breakup of the river ice cover are studied. A formula is obtained for determining whether or not the mechanical breakup process would happen under the hydraulic pressure of the flow. Combined with the hydraulic model under the ice covered flow, a numerical model is built and the interaction between the discharge, the hydraulic pressure under the ice cover and the date for the mechanical breakup of the river ice cover is simulated. The simulated results of the dates for the mecha- nical breakup of the river ice cover agree very well with the field observations of the breakups of the river ice cover in the Hequ Reach of the Yellow River. Therefore, the numerical model might serve as a good preliminary step in studying the breakup of the river ice-cover, evidencing many important parameters that affect the ice-cover process,
River ice is an important hydraulic element in temperate and polar environments and would affect hydrodynamic conditions of rivers through changes both in the boundary conditions and the thermal regime. The river bend has been reported as the common location for the initiation of ice jams because the water flow along a river bend is markedly affected by the channel curvature. In this article, the experimental studies about the ice accumulation in a river bend are reviewed. Based on experiments conducted so far, the criteria for the formation of ice jams in the river bend, the mechanisms of the ice accumulation in the river bend and the thickness profile of the ice accumulation in the river bend are discussed. The two-equation turbulence model is used to simulate the ice accumulation under an ice cover along a river bend. A formula is proposed for describing the deformation of the ice jam bottom. Our results indicate that all simulated thickness of the ice accumulation agrees reasonably well with the measured thickness of the ice accumulation in the laboratory.
