Abstract

River ice is an important branch of ice problems. However, the mechanical properties of the river ice are still unclear because of the large variation of ice problems. In the present study, over 160 specimens of river ice taken from Songhua River of China have been investigated using the MTS machine to measure the compressive strength and the elastic modules at various test temperature and strain rate. The test temperature is set at three different point (-10, -15, -20°C, respectively), the strain rate is set at the range from 5.0E-5/S to 1.0E-2/S. The test results show that the compressive strength of river ice is strongly depending on the temperature and strain rate. It increases with the decreasing test temperature. The compressive strength of ice firstly increases and then decreases with the increasing strain rate. There is one peak turning point of strain rate. The turning point value of strain rate is about 1.0E-3. The test results also show that the river ice has the typical dual mechanical characteristics of ductile and brittle behavior. When the strain rate is greater than 1E-3/S, the ice specimen exhibits obviously brittle behavior. When the strain rate is below 5.0E-4/S, the ice exhibits ductile behavior. The range of transition from ductile to brittle is about 5.0E-4/S~1E-3/S. Under compressive loading condition, the initial elastic modules of Songhua River ice are about 0.528~0.671 GPa. And the modules of River ice increases with the decreasing test temperature slightly.

Keywords:

Compressive strength, elastic modules, river ice, strain rate, temperature,

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Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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