Glaciology Commons^™

The Effect Of The Specimen–Platen Interface On Internal Cracking And Brittle Fracture Of Ice Under Compression: High-Speed Photography, E. M. Schulson, M. C. Gies, G. J. Lasonde, W. A. Nixon

Dartmouth Scholarship

Uniaxial compression experiments at –10°C at 10−3s−1 on fresh-water, granular ice have established through the use of high-speed photography that internal cracks nucleate preferentially away from the ice/platen (i/p) interface under conditions of i/p contraint, but near the interface under conditions of i/p expansion. Under conditions of little i/p interaction, cracks nucleate more or less randomly throughout the specimen. Correspondingly, the brittle-fracture strength decreases as the i/p interaction changes from compressive to tensile. These effects are explained in terms of the spatial variation of the maximum shear stress and the crack density.