The Ice Engineering Research Area is a huge clear-span refrigerated room where large-scale physical models of sections of rivers, lakes, and flow control structures are built and operated at low temperatures. It is the most versatile portion of the Ice Engineering Facility at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. Models of reaches can be constructed to test ways to alleviate ice jams through channel modification. Tests of the bearing capacity of large ice sheets and cold-testing of vehicles and structures are a few of the other potential uses of this space.
CRREL's Ice Engineering Facility is a unique research and testing complex; there is no equivalent facility in the world. At the IEF, the impacts of ice on civil works flood control and navigation structures and waterways are studied in three separate areas: the test basin, the flume, and the research area. Refrigeration systems and computerized data acquisition systems provide state-of-the-art operation and capability, and separate temperature controls allow independent operation of each area. |
Specifications