A model for characterizing the motion of the solid-liquid interface in freezing solutions

Abstract

This paper describes a model for computing the velocities at a set of points which describe the solid-liquid interface in freezing solutions. The model is based on decomposing the motion of a two dimensional boundary, which may change shape with time, into translational and radial components. The major categories of geometry that may typify the morphology of the interface under varying thermal and compositional constraints are planar, cellular and dendritic. The specific objective of this paper is to characterize distinctively the motion of each of the three morphological structures. Several illustrative examples are given to show the performance of the model as applied to the experimentally generated interfaces.