Polar navigation requires more powerful ships with increased hull strengthening capable of overcoming the additional resistance presented by sea ice and able to withstand the impacts of the many ice formations that might appear. The increase in capability of a ship to overcome the resistance whilst moving through ice infested waters, plus the extra weight of its structure due to the higher strengthening, requires greater power. Consequently, the added requirements needed by ice-going vessels entail higher emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere, greater initial investment for shipbuilding and huge operational costs. Hull strengthening of ice class vessels is defined by a proper Classification Society in their rules, which tend towards conservative equations. This work describes a methodology to obtain lighter hull structures of polar vessels using an impact model of a ship against an ice floe, based on energy methods, and focussed on early stages of design. The hull structure of the bow region of an ice class ship is designed according to the Finnish-Swedish Ice Class Rules (FSICR) and both results of the weight of the ship's bow calculated through direct calculation and current regulations are compared. Finally, some conclusions related with weight reduction are shown.
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