| Abstract | This paper presents an analysis of the results obtained from a series of measurements on freshwater and saline ice beams under various centrifugal accelerations. The data showed a strong influence of beam size, brine content and centrifugal acceleration on the elastic modulus of ice. The data suggested a transition brine volume at around 10%, which might occur close to the melting point, at which the elastic modulus of ice dropped rapidly due to a possible change of brine pocket structure. Furthermore, for brine volumes less than 10%, there was a negligible increase in the elastic modulus measured under high centrifugal accelerations, but for brine volumes greater than 10% the increase was considerable, approaching that measured with freshwater ice. This may be due to necking of brine drainage channels just above the ice/water interface at high centrifugal acceleration. A model of sea ice was constructed based on existing theories of brine inclusions in sea ice, which satisfactorily predicted the observed trends. |
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