The Slow Growth of Ice Crystals in Water

Abstract

Ice crystals were slowly grown in supercooled water at growth rates spanning those for slush to those for frazil. All of the crystals were disks with aspect ratios between 2 and 35, which increased with growth rate. The growth rates were much less than expected from theory, possibly because of crowding in the experiment. The shapes showed a gradual transition from well rounded to highly faceted as the growth rate increased. Even in the lower range of growth rates the crystals do not undergo metamorphism during growth, so the kinetics of crystal growth controls the shape over the entire range of growth rates investigated here. This explains why all of the crystals were disk shaped, as opposed to the well-rounded crystals seen in slush.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1992
Accession Number
ADA251864

Entities

People

  • Samuel C. Colbeck

Organizations

  • Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Aqueous Solutions
  • Aspect Ratio
  • Atmospheric Sciences
  • Cold Regions
  • Crystal Growth
  • Crystals
  • Curvature
  • Diameters
  • Engineering
  • Heat Energy
  • Kinetics
  • Latent Heat
  • Temperature Gradients
  • Thermal Conductivity
  • Thermodynamics
  • Transitions

Readers

  • Economics
  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Polar and Arctic Studies