Ice Strengths & Weaknesses

Ice has inherent characteristics that make it strong yet weak at the same time. To understand this you must first understand that there are many different types of “strong” when it comes to material properties. For example, a rope can be pulled, stretched, and yanked on with little worry of breaking because it has great tensile or tension strength. Yet, no one is going out of his or her way to build skyscrapers atop it. This is because, with a quick inversion of the forces applied, the rope becomes no more stable than a ball of yarn. This property is compression strength, when the force is essentially crushing the material. So how does this all relate to Ice? Well, ice is brittle. It has compression strength and some tensile strength, due to the strong hydrogen bonds within the molecules, but cannot absorb forces well because it is not malleable. Malleability being the ability to change shape without fracture, a good example being clay.

https://images.sciencedaily.com/2009/07/090715131435_1_900x600.jpg

<-- This picture depicts the brittle structure of       ice crystals. Long, fragile water molecules        provide no give when force is applied.

Understanding the key strengths that ice posses will allow it to be paired with a material that excels where ice does not. This is the concept of a composite. Combining two materials that are weak as individual substances but together provide a usable material.

The two materials that make up the Pikrete, the composite we are researching, are ice and wood pulp.