In Sweden, the design of ice loads on concrete dams varies based on the location of the dam in question, not taking the structure or utilization of the dam into consideration. In current guidelines, the design load varies from 50 to 200 kN/m. Historically, several attempts have been made to try to understand what factors and parameters affect the magnitude of the ice loads on a concrete dam, yielding in different conclusions. Previously identified governing parameters include; water-level fluctuations, thermal expansion of ice, ice-thickness, air temperature fluctuations, and ice-bank interaction.

This study aimed to further increase the knowledge of what parameters influence the magnitude of ice loads on concrete dams and disclose which of the previously known parameters has the greatest influence on the magnitude of ice load events. This was done through a literature study, analysis of field measurements, and finite element analysis. The finite element analysis was conducted to further study how to model the ice and monolith behavior to simulate realistic and applicable ice load events.

The analysis of field measurements was performed for two different dams with different geometry, stiffness, utilization, and geographical location. Results showed that the parameters that had the largest impact on the magnitude of ice loads were air temperature and water level fluctuations. The analysis of the field data showed that the highest correlation factor varied for different ice load events.

The finite element analysis was partly performed as a parametric study, studying the load due air temperature and water level fluctuations separately and later combinations of the two. The analysis showed that parameters such as cracks in the ice cover and Young’s modulus had a large impact in the parametric study, whereas only the crack distance had an impact in the later performed applied cases. Where the applied cases included the replicated case and ice temperature case, which included a real-life event and the measured ice temperature increase respectively.