Nucleation processes occurring during dynamic recrystallization in ice

Abstract:

The understanding of ice deformation mechanisms is a key point for ice flow modeling and interpretation of climatic signal extracted from ice cores. During deformation inside an ice sheet, recrystallization processes will impact texture and viscosity of ice. Recrystallization processes in ice are very similar to the ones observed in metals and rocks. Along ice cores, Continous (rotation) Dynamic Recrystallization (CDRX) and Discontinuous (migration) Dynamic Recrystallization (DDRX) occur, le later being observed mainly in the deeper part, where temperature and deviatoric stress are higher. The role of nucleation and grain boundary migration associated with DRX on texture development are still badly constrained. In this study, we associated ice creep experiments and high resolution EBSD observations (Electronic Microscopy) to better understand nucleation processes occurring during DRX. Ice is an hexagonal material in which deformation mainly occurs by dislocation glide along the basal plane conferring a strong viscoplastic anisotropy to the single crystal. Hence, during polycrystalline ice deformation the incompatibilty between grains lead to highly heterogeneous strain-field. DRX mechanisms arrise from these strong heterogeneities and induce a new microstructure and texture that relaxe the incompatibilites. The high resolution EBSD observations shown in this study are performed on selected samples of laboratory made polycrystalline columnar ice deformed until 3% macro strain (T=-7°C and σ=0.5 MPa). The analyse show that various kind of nucleation occur under these conditions such as polygonization (tilt bands, kink bands), bulge nucleation by SIGBM (strain Induced Grain Boundary Migration), and nucleation of grains with no obvious relationship with surrounding grains. All these nucleation processes are discussed regarding the associated dislocation fields using the Weigthed Burgers Vector analysis. These analyses highlight the strong heterogeneity of these fields and question the nature of dislocations involved.