The mechanical interactions between ice floes in the polar sea-ice packs play an important role in the state and predictability of the sea-ice cover. We use a Lagrangian-based numerical model to investigate such floe-floe interactions. Our simulations show that elastic and reversible deformation offers significant resistance to compression before ice floes yield with brittle failure. Compressional strength dramatically decreases once pressure ridges start to form, which implies that thicker sea ice is not necessarily stronger than thinner ice. The mechanical transition is not accounted for in most current sea-ice models that describe ice strength by thickness alone. We propose a parameterization that describes failure mechanics from fracture toughness and Coulomb sliding, improving the representation of ridge building dynamics in particle-based and continuum sea-ice models.

中文翻译：

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浮冰-浮冰相互作用对海冰压力脊的影响

极地海冰堆中浮冰之间的机械相互作用对海冰覆盖的状态和可预测性起着重要作用。我们使用基于拉格朗日的数值模型来研究这种絮凝物-絮凝物相互作用。我们的模拟表明，在浮冰屈服并发生脆性破坏之前，弹性和可逆变形提供了显着的抗压能力。一旦压力脊开始形成，压缩强度就会急剧下降，这意味着较厚的海冰不一定比较薄的冰更强。大多数当前仅通过厚度描述冰强度的海冰模型没有考虑机械转变。我们提出了一个参数化，它描述了断裂韧性和库仑滑动的失效力学，