To evaluate the force to damage the ice covers is necessary for estimation of icebreaking capability of vessels, as well as of hull strength of icebreakers, and navigation of ships in ice conditions. On the other hand, the use of ice cover support to arrange construction works from the ice is also of practical interest.

By the present moment a great deal of investigations of ice cover deformation have been carried out to result, usually, in approximate calculations formula which was obtained after making a variety of assumptions. Nevertheless, we believe that it is possible to make further improvement in calculations. Application numerical methods, and, for example, FEM, makes possible to avoid numerous drawbacks of analytical methods dealing with both complex boundaries and load application areas and other problem peculiarities.

The article considers an application of mixed models of FEM for investigating ice cover deformation. A simple flexible triangle element of mixed type was taken to solve this problem. Vector of generalized coordinates of the element contains apices flexures and normal bending moments in the middle of its sides. Compared to other elements mixed models easily satisfy compatibility requirements on the boundary of adjacent elements and do not require numerical displacement differentiation to define bending moments, because bending moments are included in vector of element generalized coordinates.

The method of account of rigid support plate is proposed. The resulting ratio, taking into account the "stiffening", reduces the number of resolving systems of equations by the number of elements on the plate contour.

To evaluate further the results the numerical realization of ice cover stress-strained problem it becomes necessary and correct to check whether calculation results correspond to accurate solution. Using an example of circular plate the convergence of numerical solutions to analytical solutions is showed.

The article presents just a small part of the obtained results. However, that is enough to confirm an acceptability of FEM mixed models in this class of problems.