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Calculations suggest that intergranular microcracks nucleated in ice cubes compressed equally on all boundaries (J. Weiss and E. M. Schulson, 1995, Acta metall. mater., 43, 2303) are formed as the result of localized deformation via grain boundary sliding activated by shear stresses which originate from the elastic anisotropy of the material.
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Weiss et al. (1996) studied this question.
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