Experimental study of the internal flow in freezing water droplets on a cold surface

The study of a freezing droplet is interesting in areas, where the understanding of build up of ice is important, for example, on wind turbines, airplane wings and roads. In this work, the main focus is to study the internal motion inside freezing water droplets using particle image velocimetry and to reveal if mechanisms such as natural convection and Marangoni convection have a noticeable influence on the flow within the droplet. The flow has successfully been visualized and measured for the first 25% of the total freezing time of the droplet when the velocity in the water is the highest and when the characteristic vortices can be seen. After this initial time period, the high amount of ice in the droplet scatters the PIV light sheet too much and the images retrieved are not suitable for analysis. Initially, it can be seen that the Marangoni effects have a large impact on the internal flow, but after about 15% of the total freezing time, the flow turns indicating increased effects of natural convection on the flow. Shortly after this time, almost no internal flow can be seen.