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Water ice Ih exhibits brittle behavior when rapidly loaded. Under tension, it fails via crack nucleation and propagation. Compressive failure is more complicated. Under low confinement, cracks slide and interact to form a frictional (Coulombic) fault. Under high confinement, frictional sliding is suppressed and adiabatic heating through crystallographic slip leads to the formation of a plastic fault. The coefficient of static friction increases with time under load, owing to creep of asperities in contact. The coefficient of kinetic (dynamic) friction, set by the ratio of asperity shear strength to hardness, increases with velocity at lower speeds and decreases at higher speeds as contacts melt through frictional heating. Microcracks, upon reaching a critical number density (which near the ductile-to-brittle transition is nearly constant above a certain strain rate), form a pathway for percolation. Additional work is needed on the effects of porosity and crack healing.
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