The brittle compressive failure of fresh-water columnar ice loaded biaxially

New experiments have been performed on the brittle compressive failure of columnar-grained, S2 fresh-water ice, proportionally loaded biaxially across the columns at -10 degreesC at 4.5 x 10(-3) s(-1). The results and analysis show that under higher confinement (sigma(22)/sigma(11) > 0.2) where terminal failure occurs via across-column cleavage and spalling out of the loading plane, a combination of wing crack growth and Euler buckling of deformation-induced thin plates underlies the process. (C) 2004 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.