Ice adhesion plays a critical role in a broad range of infrastructure in cold climates. An understanding of the fundamental physics of ice adhesion will provide the capability to enhance infrastructure design (e.g. via material or coating choices). For this purpose we are examining the fracture of ice from a substrate at the bi-material interface. Traditional approaches consider adhesion of ice to surfaces as a material strength problem, wherein an adhesion strength is calculated by dividing the peak applied load by the interfacial contact area. This adhesion strength approach is problematic since it cannot account for the unique physics of interfacial fracture, such as crack characteristics. We are using a fracture mechanics approach to systematically analyze the microscale material properties of surfaces in the context of macroscale ice adhesion. Our study focuses on using experimental data to inform computational studies, which are aimed at developing a physical model in ABAQUS that describes the contact mechanics of bi-material interfaces formed by ice. Our ABAQUS model uses a user defined material (UMAT) to represent the ice. The UMAT has the ability to capture the mechanical behavior of ice across multiple temperatures, loading frequencies, stresses, and timescales, and its performance compares well with experimental data. The objective of this study is to use different fracture models to define the interfacial fracture criteria so that the fundamental properties of ice adhesion can be understood. <br/>

Computational study of adhesive properties of bi-material interfaces formed with freshwater ice

2019 Fall National Meeting

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