Julia Christmann

• In this thesis viscoelastic material models are established to investigate the nature of continuous calving processes at Antarctic ice shelves. Physics-based descriptions of calving require appropriate fracture criteria to separate icebergs from the remaining ice shelf. Hence, criteria of the stress, the strain, and the self-similarity criterion are considered within finite-element computations. Crucial parameters in the models to determine the position of calving are the accurate knowledge of the geometry, especially the freeboard height, while the material parameters mainly influence the time span between two successive calving events. The extension to nonlinear material models is necessary to properly analyze the internal forces also for large deformations that occur for longer times of the viscous ice flow.