Numerical investigation of water droplet freezing in warm and cold environments using the lattice Boltzmann method

Document Type : Original Article

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Department of Mechanical Engineering, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the solidification process of water droplets in both cold and warm environments. Using numerical simulations, a new simple approach has been introduced to predict the freezing time of droplets. Numerical study is based on the free energy lattice Boltzmann method, which employs the Cahn-Hilliard equation to achieve thermodynamic consistency in simulations. Numerical results show that even though a 1D solution is simple, it can still provide good approximations for a significant portion of the freezing process. In this regard, the paper introduces a new concept called one-dimensional equivalent length as a measure of freezing time. Consequently, the way this new concept can be affected by environmental conditions is investigated in detail, revealing that air temperature and contact angle can have the most dominant effects. It has been shown that the presence of cold air around the droplet can reduce the anti-icing performance of hydrophobic surfaces. The way in which the one-dimensional length depends on the Stefan number suggests that ice layer growth in a cold environment is more similar to what happens in 1D solidification. The paper provides a new insight into water solidification and meanwhile introduces a new concept to assess the performance of anti-ice techniques.

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