Viscous anisotropy of glacier ice

Monocrystal Polycrystal

If grains are approximately transversely isotropic, the grain rheology can be modelled using the transversely isotropic power-law rheology. This requires specifying the grain eigenenhancements \(E_{mm}'\) and \(E_{mt}'\), the power-law exponent \(n'\), and the Taylor—Sachs weight \(\alpha\).

For glacier ice, we follow the literature and rename

\[ {\bf c} = {\bf m}^\prime \quad\text{and}\quad {\bf a} = {\bf t}^\prime. \]

The below code example shows how to calculate \(E_{ij}\) given a4 (or nlm) assuming the grain parameters proposed by Rathmann and Lilien (2021):

import numpy as np
from specfabpy import specfab as sf
lm, nlm_len = sf.init(8) 

### Synthetic unidirectional CPO (all c-axes aligned in z-direction)
m = np.array([0,0,1]) 
a4 = np.einsum('i,j,k,l', m,m,m,m) # 4-times repeated outer product of m
nlm = np.zeros((nlm_len), dtype=np.complex64)
nlm[:sf.L4len] = sf.a4_to_nlm(a4) # derive corresponding expansion coefficients

### Basis for enhancement factor calculations
(e1,e2,e3, eigvals) = sf.frame(nlm, 'e') # enhancement factors are w.r.t. a^(2) basis (i.e. eigenenhancements)
#(e1,e2,e3) = np.eye(3) # enhancement factors are w.r.t. Cartesian basis (x,y,z)

### Transversely isotropic monocrystal parameters for ice (Rathmann & Lilien, 2021)
n_grain   = 1        # power-law exponent: n=1 => linear grain rheology, nonlinear (n>1) is unsupported.
Eij_grain = (1, 1e3) # grain eigenenhancements (Ecc,Eca) for compression along c-axis (Ecc) and for shear parallel to basal plane (Eca)
alpha     = 0.0125   # Taylor--Sachs weight

### Calculate enhancement factors w.r.t. (e1,e2,e3)
Eij = sf.Eij_tranisotropic(nlm, e1,e2,e3, Eij_grain,alpha,n_grain) # Eij=(E11,E22,E33,E23,E13,E12)

Choosing grain parameters for glacier ice

The grain parameters proposed by Rathmann and Lilien (2021) assume a linear viscous (\(n'=1\)) response and promote the activation of basal glide by making that slip system soft compared to other systems: \(E_{ca}' > 1\), whereas \(E_{cc}'=1\). This reduces the problem to that of picking \(E_{ca}'\) and \(\alpha\), which Rathmann and Lilien (2021) chose such that deformation tests on unidirectional CPOs (perfect single maximum) are approximately reproduced: \(E_{mt}=10\) while \(E_{mt}/E_{pq} \sim 10^4\), where \(p,q\) denote directions at \(45^\circ\) to \({\bf m}\).

The effect of choosing alternative \(E_{ca}'\) and \(\alpha\) (left plot) on eigenenhancements for different CPO states (right plot) is here shown for combinations of \(E_{ca}'\) and \(\alpha\) that fulfill \(E_{mt}=10\) for a unidirectional CPO:

Clearly, there is a tradeoff between how shear enhanced (\(E_{mt}\)) and how hard for axial compression (\(E_{mm}\)) the model allows a unidirectional CPO to be.