Creep of ice crystals and the measurement of strain: some technical considerations

Ice crystals reproduced serially from a common seed were machined into rectangular prisms and submitted to a constant load in a levertype compression apparatus. All crystals had their [0001] axis oriented parallel to a prismatic surface and at 45\ub0 with the load axis. The temperature at which deformation took place was -2\ub0C and the stress levels were 300, 500, and 700 kPa. Three types of boundary conditions were investigated. A new design for transducer set-up is proposed which takes into account the high plastic anisotropy inherent to ice crystals. It is also suggested that the creep behavior of this material follows a polynomial form rather than power-law, as reported in previous investigations.Mr. Barrette and Mr. Sinha were affiliated with the National Research Council of Canada, Institute for Environmental Research and Technology when they authored this article.M. Barrette et M. Sinha \ue9taitent affili\ue9s avec le Conseil national de recherches du Canada, Institut de recherche environnementale et de technologie lorsqu\u2019ils ont r\ue9dig\ue9 cet article.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye