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Abstract Arctic offshore structures are subject to combined wave-ice actions. However, the underlying mechanisms governing the interaction between waves ice and these structures remain inadequately understood. Performing well-controlled laboratory experiments is a fundamental approach to acquiring insights into such complicated physical processes. This paper builds on analyzing the laboratory data that were obtained from the HYDRALAB+ Transnational Access project: Loads on Structure and Waves in Ice (LS-WICE), and studies the inline wave forces on a model-scale, stationary, vertical, semi-submerged, bottomless circular cylindrical shell structure, both with and without the presence of ice. In the experiment, the structure was exposed to unidirectional monochromatic waves with increasing heights at prescribed periods under open-water and ice-infested conditions. In the latter case, the ice field comprised uniformly sized and densely packed rectangular ice floes. Various data analysis techniques, including Prony, dynamic mode decomposition, fast Fourier transform, Tikhonov regularization-based denoising, and Singular Spectrum Analysis, are applied to obtain a reliable estimate of wave amplitudes and the magnitudes of wave loads. The experimental results suggest that the wave loads on the hollow cylinder, when surrounded by a fragmented ice cover, decrease by up to 27% in comparison to the ice-free water condition. This reduction results primarily from the attenuation of waves in an ice field.