Frazil Formation in Water of Different Salinities and Supercoolings

• Published in: Journal of Glaciology
• Main Authors: Tsang, Gee, Hanley, Thomas O’D.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1985
• Subjects: Journal of Glaciology
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000006298; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143000006298

Abstract The formation of frazil in water of different salinities and initial supercoolings was studied in the laboratory. Experiments were conducted both on genuine and artificial sea-waters. From analysing the experimental results, it was found that the production rate of frazil is highly sensitive to the initial supercooling of the water and will increase over three orders of magnitude as the initial supercooling increases from zero to 2° C. By properly non-dimensionalizing the parameters, it was found that the normalized concentration of frazil in water is principally a function of the normalized time. For the rate of production of frazil, however, it was found that the normalized rate of frazil production, besides being a function of the normalized time, is also affected by the salinity and the initial supercooling of the water. Different frazil crystals formed in water of different salinities and initial supercoolings are thought to be the reason for the different curves of frazil production rate. The normalization of parameters requires the determination of some characteristic parameters which were found to be well-defined functions of initial supercooling and salinity.