Northern Sea Route is the shortest sea route linking East Asia and Europe, which shortens 35%~60% in distance via Suez Canal route. It also shortens 7~10 days in transportation time. Another reason for the potential economic benefits in the NSR shipping is that the Russian Arctic holds enormous amount of oil and natural gas. However the natural environment of the Arctic Ocean is too hostile to navigate through the NSR without remarkable advances in ship technology. As a basic study on ice-transiting vessels, this study focuses on ice resistance and ice load estimation methods by gathering model tests and full-scale sea trial data from many previous research articles.
The ice resistance data and its empirical/semi-empirical prediction equations are summarized in common format and are compared with each other, based on three ship categories, i.e, icebreakers, tug/supply vessels, ice-strengthened cargo ships. Also the estimation methods of extreme ice load acting on ship's hull are studied with a similar manner. Sample calculation of extreme ice loads(global and local loads) are performed and the results are compared with each other.