Frosting mechanism and behaviors on surfaces with simple geometries: A state-of-the-art literature review

•Correlations of frosting characteristic parameters are summarized and analysed.•Effects of frosting conditions on average frost layer characteristics are reviewed.•Frosting distribution characteristic for different cold surfaces are reviewed.•Eight research gaps relating to frosting mechanism and behaviors are identified. Frosting causes negative impacts in many technical and engineering fields, such as refrigeration, air source heat pump, aircraft, wind power generation, and power grids. To alleviate the negative impacts of frosting, studies on frosting characteristics, avoiding and delaying frosting, and defrosting mechanisms and methods have been carried out for decades. Among these studies, frosting characteristics, which are the fundamental basis for defrosting, avoiding, and delaying frosting are consistently the hot research spots. Considering that complex structures can be usually regarded as the combination of simple geometries, in this paper, a comprehensive review of the literature related to the frosting mechanism and behaviors on surfaces with simple geometries is presented. The former covers frost formation process and morphology, frost layer structure model, and frosting characteristic parameters, such as frost thickness and effective frost thermal conductivity. The latter is further divided into six parts based on the configurations of cold surfaces, including flat plates with a fixed surface temperature, flat plates with a fixed base temperature, cylinders, parallel plates, set of fins and semipermeable membranes. Based on the review, the research gaps in the related study fields are identified, and recommendations for further research are offered. The literature review presented in this paper can provide a comprehensive and systematic reference for the people who are working in the study fields where frosting is commonly encountered.