The Ice Tank Shaping Future Coast Guard Icebreakers

A demonstration of the icebreaking testing taking place at the National Research Council of Canada in St. Johns, Newfoundland and Labrador. Credit: CNW Group/National Research Council Canada Imagine your childhood bathtub playtime magnified into large model ships plowing through an ice-filled tank with a length that rivals the Statue of Liberty's height. That 300-foot ice tank in the Canadian city of St. John's is currently helping the U.S. Coast Guard conduct tests of different ship designs as the United States plans to end a 40-year lull in building new heavy icebreakers. The U.S. Coast Guard aims to build four heavy polar icebreakers as replacements for its single aging heavy icebreaker. Such icebreakers that can push or ram through thick sea ice and are necessary in performing patrol, resupply and emergency rescue missions near the Arctic or Antarctica. That is why the U.S. Coast Guard turned to the second-largest ice tank in the world owned by the National Research Council of Canada to carry out some preliminary test runs of icebreaker designs in miniature. The Canadian ice tank—295 feet long by 39 feet wide by 10 feet deep—can replicate sea ice conditions ranging from regular ice sheets to deep ice ridges, all based on decades worth of studies and research careers built upon figuring out how to model ice. "This tank is enclosed in a great big freezer, an insulated room with a very large capacity refrigeration system which allows us to take the air temperature in that room down to minus 20 degrees Celsius," says Jim Millan, director of research at the National Research Council (NRC) Canada. "What we’re trying to do is not only mimic the ships, but also the environment." In May 2017, the NRC ice tank carried out its first test runs for the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security based on a prior partnership agreement. But getting ice tank testing just right matters for much more than the U.S. Coast Guard's future icebreaker fleet. It matters when a military wants to know if a nuclear submarine can punch through Arctic pack ice from below when it needs to surface. It matters for countries and corporations that want to operate ice-resistant oil rigs or generate power from offshore wind turbines in Arctic waters. And it matters for the Arctic ports and towns that have piers or wharves sticking out into icy waterways.