Laminar uni- and bi-directional boundary-layer flow of a melting vertical ice face: experiments and direct numerical simulations

Abstract

A combined experimental and direct numerical simulation (DNS) investigation is undertaken to study the laminar boundary-layer (BL) flow adjacent to a melting vertical ice face at two far-field water salinities (S∞ = 0 and 34 ‰) and a range of far-field temperatures (T∞). Wall-normal distributions of vertical velocity and temperature within the BL are measured by a modified molecular tagging velocimetry and thermometry technique. Experimental data match with DNS only when a nonlinear equation of state (EoS) for density is used rather than a linear EoS. For all S∞ = 0, i.e. freshwater cases, the flow remains uni-directional, although the flow reverses direction at T∞ = 4°C. A bi-directional fl..