Do loading path and specimen thickness affect the brittle compressive failure of ice?

Abstract

AbstractCompressive experiments were performed on square (160 mm × 160 mm) prismatic specimens of columnar-grained, S2 freshwater ice, biaxially loaded across the columns at −10°C. The work focused on brittle behavior, achieved by deforming the specimens at an applied strain rate of 4.5 ± 1.2 × 10 3s 1 in the direction of shortening. The results show that the specimen thickness (25–150 mm) has no detectable effect on the terminal failure strength of the ice. Likewise, the strength of the ice when loaded under proportional loading, where the minor stress varies during the test, was similar to that when loaded under a constant minor stress, implying that terminal failure depends only on the stress state and not on the path taken.