Ice sintering: Dependence of sintering force on temperature, load, duration, and particle size

We present experiments along with an approximate, semi-analytic, close-form solution to predict ice sintering force as a function of temperature, contact load, contact duration, and particle size during the primary stage of sintering. The ice sintering force increases nearly linear with increasing contact load but nonlinear with both contact duration and particle size in the form of a power law. The exponent of the power law for size dependence is around the value predicted by general sintering theory. The temperature dependence of the sintering force is also nonlinear and follows the Arrhenius equation. At temperatures closer to the melting point, a liquid bridge is observed upon the separation of the contacted ice particles. We also find that the ratio of ultimate tensile strength of ice to the axial stress concentration factor in tension is an important factor in determining the sintering force, and a value of nearly 1.1 MPa can best catch the sintering force of ice in different conditions. We find that the activation energy is around 41.4 KJ / mol, which is close to the previously reported data. Also, our results suggest that smaller particles are “stickier” than larger particles. Moreover, during the formation of the ice particles, cavitation and surface cracking is observed which can be one of the sources for the variations observed in the measured ice sintering force.