The creep of ice in bending

Observations were made on the creep behavior of columnar ice beams of different thicknesses subjected to repeated and reversed loading. More than half of the beams tested showed unusual creep behavior. During transient creep the strain rate increased to a maximum value and decreased only thereafter. It was established that this behavior was not a permanent property of ice. On reloading, the same beams exhibited normal creep behavior. For the conditions of the experiments, the deflection was very sensitive to the thickness of the beams. It was found that the neutral axis was located at the center of the beam when the maximum strain was less than 1%.On a \ue9tudi\ue9 le fluage de colonnes de glace d'\ue9paisseur diff\ue9 rente soumises \ue0 des charges r\ue9p\ue9t\ue9es et invers\ue9es. Plus de la moiti\ue9 des colonnes v\ue9rifi\ue9es ont r\ue9v\ue9l\ue9 un fluage inhabituel. Au cours des p\ue9riodes de fluage transitoires, le taux de d\ue9formation a grimp\ue9 \ue0 un niveau maximum et n'a diminu\ue9 qu'ensuite. On a d'ailleurs prouv\ue9 que ce comportement n'\ue9tait pas une propri\ue9t\ue9 permanente de la glace. Lors de la recharge, les m\ueames colonnes ont r\ue9v\ue9l\ue9 un fluage normal. Dans les conditions des exp\ue9riences, la d\ue9 formation d\ue9pendait \ue9troitement de l'\ue9paisseur des colonnes. On a constat\ue9 que l'axe neutre \ue9tait situ\ue9 au centre de la colonne lorsque la contrainte maximale \ue9tait inf\ue9rieure \ue0 1%.Peer reviewed: NoNRC publication: Ye