Construction and structural analysis of an arched cellulose reinforced ice bridge for transportation infrastructure in cold regions

While floating ice covers have been leveraged to traverse water bodies during cold months, ice has seen little use as a stationary, free-standing bridging material for transportation routes. To address this knowledge gap, an arched bridge made from ice reinforced with 0.3 wt% cellulose was constructed using a spray deposition method. The bridge was built over a constructed gap (3 × 3 × 1 m) in a temperature-controlled facility and was able to support the static and dynamic loading of military-grade vehicles (up to 3050 kg) with no apparent damage to the bridge. Flexural and compression testing of ice specimens extracted from the bridge post traverse indicated that the cellulose reinforced ice is approximately 2× greater in strength compared to pure ice. Microstructural analysis showed a layered structure with smaller ice grains in layers with more cellulose. To assess the utility of the arched cellulose reinforced ice bridge (ACRIB) as a technology, we built a computational model using a conservative approach with pure ice material properties and only short-term elastic loading. We probed the loading capacity of the ACRIB as built and with design modifications. The model results predicted that the ACRIB as built could support up to 16,800 kg of static loading, which is safely in the range of military tactical vehicles (e.g., M1083, 13,480 kg) and commercial vehicles (e.g., Ford F150, 2300 kg). Increasing the curvature of the bridge effectively increases the load capacity of the ACRIB by approximately 50%, while larger gaps and widths are still able to support vehicles up to 3050 kg if the ice is thickened by 50%. The versatility of this new approach is of high impact to both civilian and military mobility in cold regions, adding a critical new tool to the cold regions engineering toolbox.