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SAMC
o
T • Annual report 2012
he is. His knowledge of ice as a discontinuous and heter
ogeneous material could possibly save the Finnish wood
industry millions.
As it happens, wood is also a discontinuous and hetero
geneous material. This might seem like a digression,
since the main point of this article is to present Jukka
Tuhkuri as member of SAMCoT’s scientific advisory
committee (SAC). But then, what’s wrong with fun? And
isn’t it a good sign that a scientist is open to new impulses
and happily engages in a new material when he is invited
to? We think so, especially when the ultimate target of
the research is to radically decrease the use of energy
in wood processing.
15 years’ history
Now ice. Froma background in naval architecture, Jukka
Tuhkuri went on to study ice mechanics and in particular
ice loads to ships. He obtained his professorship in solid
mechanics at the Aalto University in 2001 and advanced
to head the department of applied mechanics. In an
environment of engineers and geophysicists he and his
team model ice as a discontinuous and heterogeneous
material by using the Discrete Element Method.
His links with the people at SAMCoT date way back.
More than 15 years have passed since he first met
WP2 leader Knut Høyland through the common inter
est for ice ridges. Since then they have met count
less times through everything from two-day seminars
with doctoral students to the extensive collaboration
between NTNU and his own university in Espoo.
Now Tuhkuri is happy to be a part of the SAMCoT team:
“We need collaboration in research. We have differ
ent approaches and therefore discussion is fruitful,”
he says. He points to Nordic Five Tech, the cooperation
between the five Nordic technological universities, as
an example and where a new initiative on joint doctoral
education in Arctic technology is one of several areas
covered.
Monitor
Jukka Tuhkuri is member of the WP2 team which deals
with material modelling. The goal is to provide constitu
tive models for ice rubble and permafrost that can be
used in advanced analyses of boundary value problems
in other work packages, and to create numerical models
that could be used to predict the drift of icebergs and
sea ice in the Barents Sea and Kara Sea. “This is excit
ing stuff. We still don’t understand how ice ridges fail.
We want to understand loads to structures by studying
the physics of the ridges through modelling individual
ice blocks,” says Tuhkuri.
He describes his role on the SAC as monitoring: “We
check if SAMCoT’s work holds high international level.
Should we find that it doesn’t, we must do something. As
part of this work, we ask doctoral students to come to
our meetings and present their work.”
Small community
With good reason Norwegians consider national hero
Fridtjof Nansen a polar pioneer. Although this was not
his primary field of research, his findings on structures
in ice continue to impress today’s scientists. Nansen
was far from alone, though. The Finns were also eagerly
working with ice engineering back in the 1800s. Still, the
community of ice researchers has remained relatively
small until now. When Jukka Tuhkuri meets up with Knut
Høyland and the rest at international conferences, they
are seldom more than 200. This fact is rapidly chang
ing. Climate change is opening new areas for explora
tion and possible production of oil and gas and interest
is booming.
Jukka Tuhkuri will surely have his hands full as long as
he wants. And when he no longer does, he can resort to
sailing. His 34 feet six-tonner is waiting in the harbour.
* The saying goes “touch wood”, “bank i bordet” in
Norwegian, “toca madera” in Spanish and “paina puuta”
in Finnish. But if wood is just as discontinuous and
heterogeneous as ice, we hereby suggest that experts
on ice mechanics are entitled to say “Touch ice” instead.
In Finnish that would be “paina jäätä.”
Prof. Tuhkuri during his participation at SAMCoT’s 1
st
International PhD Workshop.
Photo: Ole Morten Melgård