A microstructural rheological model for transient creep in polycrystalline ice
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arXiv
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| Natura: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866914190242873344 |
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| author | Vargas, Alex J. Ran, Ranjiangshang Burton, Justin C. |
| author_facet | Vargas, Alex J. Ran, Ranjiangshang Burton, Justin C. |
| contents | The slow creep of glacial ice plays a key role in sea-level rise, yet its transient deformation remains poorly understood. Glen's flow law, where strain rate is simply a function of stress, cannot predict the time-dependent creep behavior observed in experiments. Here we present a physics-based rheological model that captures all three regimes of transient creep in polycrystalline ice. The key components of the model are a series of Kelvin-Voigt mechanical elements that produce a power-law (Andrade) creep, and a single viscous element with microstructure and stress dependence that represents reorientation in the polycrystalline grains. The interplay between these components produces a minimum in the strain rate at approximately 1% strain, which is a universal but unexplained feature reported in experiments. Due to its transient nature, the model exhibits fractional power-law exponents in the stress dependence of the strain rate minimum, which has been conventionally interpreted as independent physical processes. Taken together, we provide a compact, mechanistic framework for transient ice rheology that generalizes to other polycrystalline materials and can be integrated into constitutive laws for ice-sheet models. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_08907 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | A microstructural rheological model for transient creep in polycrystalline ice Vargas, Alex J. Ran, Ranjiangshang Burton, Justin C. Geophysics Soft Condensed Matter The slow creep of glacial ice plays a key role in sea-level rise, yet its transient deformation remains poorly understood. Glen's flow law, where strain rate is simply a function of stress, cannot predict the time-dependent creep behavior observed in experiments. Here we present a physics-based rheological model that captures all three regimes of transient creep in polycrystalline ice. The key components of the model are a series of Kelvin-Voigt mechanical elements that produce a power-law (Andrade) creep, and a single viscous element with microstructure and stress dependence that represents reorientation in the polycrystalline grains. The interplay between these components produces a minimum in the strain rate at approximately 1% strain, which is a universal but unexplained feature reported in experiments. Due to its transient nature, the model exhibits fractional power-law exponents in the stress dependence of the strain rate minimum, which has been conventionally interpreted as independent physical processes. Taken together, we provide a compact, mechanistic framework for transient ice rheology that generalizes to other polycrystalline materials and can be integrated into constitutive laws for ice-sheet models. |
| title | A microstructural rheological model for transient creep in polycrystalline ice |
| topic | Geophysics Soft Condensed Matter |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08907 |