Author(s): Nirmal K. Sinha

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Abstract: Ice is a crystalline material and the in situ borehole indentation tests are carried out on ice at temperatures very close to its melting point. These are the two primary factors that have steered us in rethinking about ice and its deformation processes. Ice mechanics is part of a broad new subject, a developing frontier: creep, structural damage and failure of crystalline materials at high temperatures and high stresses. The elevated-temperature micromechanical processes are manifest in rate-sensitive, loading path-dependent properties of polycrystalline solids including ice. Progress made on the microstructure-based theoretical approaches has helped us in understanding the kinetics of microfracturing and the complexities of microcrack-induced uniaxial failures in ice. These analytical methods will also be the determining factors in the interpretation of in situ, three-dimensionally loaded, borehole indentation of ice. The knowledge gained on uniaxial response guided us in designing relevant uniaxial experiments and was instrumental in developing methods for borehole indentation tests. It also allowed us to focus our efforts in examining loading histories in terms of unambiguous, readily measurable loading conditions such as temperature, indentation rate, failure time, average stress and stress rate.

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Year: 1992