Polar Bear Engineering

Polar bears are believed  to be endangered.  As the Arctic continues to warm, two-thirds of the world's polar bears could disappear by mid-century. Rapid loss of sea ice is the major threat. Polar bears can't survive for long in ice water but need to hunt for seals hundreds of miles off shore.

We propose to assist them using temporary floating structures made from ice and biodegradable additives. One such additive is sawdust which when added to ice in approximately 14 per cent concentration creates a material called Pykrete. Pykrete was proposed during World War II by Geoffrey Pyke for a huge, unsinkable aircraft carrier. Pykrete is slow melting and is tough and comparable to concrete. Pykete will be compared to other ice mixtures  for possible use in  floating ice islands for polar bears in the summer.

Robert D. Tanner, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee and Henry R. Bungay, Chemical and Biological  Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.