Visualization of icing process of a water droplet impinging onto a frozen cold plate under free and forced convection

摘要

In summary, we reported an icing physics study to investigate the transient phase-changing process within a water droplet impinging onto a frozen cold plate under free and forced convection. Under free convection, droplet was symmetrical with respect to its centerline throughout the freezing process. Besides, during the upward movement of the solid liquid interface, the leftmost point and rightmost point of the interface were almost on the same height relative to the test plate. However, under forced convection, the symmetry of the droplet was lost early in the icing process. In addition, as the upward movement of the solid-liquid interface, the leftmost point of the interface moved slower than the rightmost point. Finally, under both free and forced convection, the freezing time of droplets reduced with the decrease of test plate temperature.