TY - JOUR
T1 - Abrupt transition from slow to fast melting of ice
AU - Yang, Rui
AU - Chong, Kai Leong
AU - Liu, Hao Ran
AU - Verzicco, Roberto
AU - Lohse, Detlef
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Priority Programme SPP 1881 Turbulent Superstructures of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and by NWO via the Zwaartekrachtprogramma MCEC and an ERC-Advanced Grant under Project No. 740479. K.L.C. is supported by the Shanghai Science and Technology Program under Project No. 19JC1412802. This work was partly carried out on the national e-infrastructure of SURFsara. We also gratefully acknowledge support by the Balzan Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Physical Society.
PY - 2022/8/15
Y1 - 2022/8/15
N2 - How fast ice melts in turbulent flows is key to many natural and industrial processes, most notably the melting of ice in the polar regions. To get a better quantitative understanding of the physical mechanics at play, as a model system we pick vertical convection, consisting of ice and fresh water, and examine the lateral melting behavior through numerical simulations and theory. We find that the melting rate of ice as a function of an increasing heating temperature undergoes an abrupt transition from a slow- to a fast-melting state, contrary to the intuition of a gradual transition. The abrupt transition of the ice melting rate is due to the emergence of a reversed buoyant flow, due to the density anomaly of water near the melting point. A theoretical model based on energy conservation gives rise to a universal expression to relate the global heat fluxes and the ice melting rate which is consistent with our data. Besides their fundamental significance, our findings improve our understanding of how phase transitions couple to adjacent turbulent flow.
AB - How fast ice melts in turbulent flows is key to many natural and industrial processes, most notably the melting of ice in the polar regions. To get a better quantitative understanding of the physical mechanics at play, as a model system we pick vertical convection, consisting of ice and fresh water, and examine the lateral melting behavior through numerical simulations and theory. We find that the melting rate of ice as a function of an increasing heating temperature undergoes an abrupt transition from a slow- to a fast-melting state, contrary to the intuition of a gradual transition. The abrupt transition of the ice melting rate is due to the emergence of a reversed buoyant flow, due to the density anomaly of water near the melting point. A theoretical model based on energy conservation gives rise to a universal expression to relate the global heat fluxes and the ice melting rate which is consistent with our data. Besides their fundamental significance, our findings improve our understanding of how phase transitions couple to adjacent turbulent flow.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85136157965&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevFluids.7.083503
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevFluids.7.083503
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85136157965
VL - 7
JO - Physical review fluids
JF - Physical review fluids
SN - 2469-990X
IS - 8
M1 - 083503
ER -