Recently, China’s 13th Arctic Ocean scientific expedition team arrived in Shanghai aboard polar icebreaker Xuelong 2 with the mission completed. Chen Xiaodong, a young faculty member from the Department of Engineering Mechanics at Dalian University of Technology (DUT), became the first Chinese sea ice mechanics researcher to reach the North Pole for the expedition.

During the expedition, the team reached 90 degrees North latitude (also known as the North Pole) aboard icebreaker Xuelong 2, marking the first time that a Chinese research vessel had carried out comprehensive surveys in the North Pole region. Chen was involved in the onboard observation of sea ice and the measurement of sea ice mechanical properties. During the operation at 47 ocean research stations, 6 short-term ice stations, and 1 long-term ice station, he performed tasks including carrying out field tests of sea ice mechanical properties and collecting data on the ice, as well as conducting onboard automated observations of sea ice parameters and using drones for observation. He collected a 0.52-cubic-meter ice block sample and 181 ice core samples. Among the ice core samples, 15 were collected from the ice floe at the North Pole. These samples are expected to fill the data gap in China’s research on the physical and mechanical properties of sea ice in this region.

The two tasks conducted by Chen Xiaodong were both highlighted in the research of the 13th Arctic Ocean Scientific Expedition, including the first time that the mechanical properties of Arctic sea ice had been studied under impact load based on in-situ experiments and the unmanned intelligent observation of sea ice thickness based on binocular stereo vision. In addition, he was invited to serve as a lecturer at the “University of the Arctic” to share the significance of polar scientific expeditions for the study of sea ice mechanics.