Structural Properties and Simple Compression Behavior of Laboratory-Made Polycrystalline Isotropic Ice at High Temperatures

Polycrystalline isotropic ice was selected as the material of choice for this fundamental study on the mechanical behavior of ice. Two essential properties of the ice structure are the porosity and degree of anisotropy (DA). On the one hand, it is clear that these two factors have a great influence on the mechanical properties of the material. On the other hand, however, they are strongly dependent on the laboratory procedure used to fabricate the ice samples. Thus, in this work, three procedures to produce ice samples are analyzed. For this purpose, the structural and mechanical properties observed in uniaxial compression tests are discussed for each sample fabrication procedure. Then, after the most suitable fabrication procedure has been determined, the viscous behavior of isotropic ice is analyzed and discussed using the results of simple compression test at different temperatures and axial strain rates.