ANALYSIS OF ICE FRAGMENTATION PROCESS FROM MEASURED PARTICLE-SIZE DISTRIBUTIONS OF CRUSHED ICE

Crushing of ice has been studied as a general fragmentation process of a brittle material. Analysis of four ice crushing experiments shows t hat most of the size distributions of the crushed ice are more accurat ely represented by the Weibull distribution than by the power law mode l. This manifests against fractal size distribution. Based on the meas ured size distributions, together with observations from the experimen ts, it is proposed that the ice fragmentation events analysed can be c haracterised as a three stage process. In the first stage a propagatin g crack forms an ice flake. In the second stage, this flake breaks int o a group of ice fragments. This is called a single fracture or an ins tantaneous break-up. In the third stage this group of fragments is loa ded further and broken into smaller particles. This is called comminut ion.