Author(s): E. M. Gates; R. Narten; E. P. Lozowski; L. Makkonen

Linked Author(s):

Keywords: No Keywords

Abstract: Spongy ice is a type of ice accretion in which unfrozen liquid water is incorporated into the ice matrix. Its occurrence has been known for several decades by scientists studying hail, but its significance for marine icing has only recently been considered, despite the well-known occurrence of brine pockets trapped in sea ice. It is potentially quite important for the modelling of marine ice accretion, inasmuch as the unfrozen liquid may significantly increase the deposit mass, without requiring additional heat transfer to remove the latent heat. Preliminary experimental results on rotating cylinders at high liquid water contents using freshwater have shown unfrozen water contents of up to 30% of the total deposit mass. It may, therefore, be possible to explain some of the discrepancy between models and experiments at high liquid water contents in terms of spongy ice, rather than by some as yet incompletely understood splashing-enhanced heat transfer. Further experiments are now underway to try to identify what icing variables control the sponginess and to attempt to parameterize it in marine icing models.

DOI:

Year: 1986