A grain boundary groove measurement of the surface tension between ice and water

Abstract

The surface tension between ice and water has been measured by observations of the equilibrium shape of grain boundary grooves at an interface stabilized by an imposed temperature gradient. The experiments have been designed to minimize the perturbing effects of heat flow in the cell walls which contain the samples. The observed grooves are in agreement with the theory of Nash and Glicksman (1971) which predicts groove shapes for the case of unequal thermal conductivities in the two phases. The measurements give a value of 29·1±0·8 mJ m⁻² for the ice-water surface tension.