Contact Line Catch Up by Growing Ice Crystals

Abstract

The effect of freezing on contact line motion is a scientific challenge in the understanding of the solidification of capillary flows. In this letter, we experimentally investigate the spreading and freezing of a water droplet on a cold substrate. We demonstrate that solidification stops the spreading because the ice crystals catch up with the advancing contact line. Indeed, we observe the formation and growth of ice crystals along the substrate during the drop spreading, and show that their velocity equals the contact line velocity when the drop stops. Modelling the growth of the crystals, we predict the shape of the crystal front and show that the substrate thermal properties play a major role on the frozen drop radius

arXiv commentPhysical Review Letters, 22 juin 2022

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Enhanced bubble growth near an advancing solidification front
• The macroscopic contact angle of water on ice
• Flat-cupped transition in freezing drop impacts
• Vertical-supercooling-controlled interfacial instability for a spreading liquid film
• Marangoni-driven freezing dynamics of supercooled binary droplets