Ice loads on a ship hull affect the safety of the hull structure and the ship maneuvering performance in ice-covered regions. A discrete element method (DEM) is used to simulate the interaction between drifting ice floes and a moving ship. The pancake ice floes are modelled with three-dimensional (3-D) dilated disk elements considering the buoyancy, drag force and additional mass induced by the current. The ship hull is modelled with 3D disks with overlaps. Ice loads on the ship hull are determined through the contact detection between ice floe element and ship hull element and the contact force calculation. The influences of different ice conditions (current velocities and directions, ice thicknesses, concentrations and ice floe sizes) and ship speeds are also examined on the dynamic ice force. The simulated results are compared qualitatively well with the existing field data and other numerical results. This work can be helpful in the ship structure design and the navigation security in ice-covered fields.