why does crushed ice melt faster than cubed ice? I thought it had to do with surface area exposed to heat, but with cubes you're still exposing a large area to heat.

File: 71 KB, 600x600, ice_cubes.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Anonymous Sat Jul 27 21:01:27 2013 No.5929300 [Reply] [Original]

why does crushed ice melt faster than cubed ice?

I thought it had to do with surface area exposed to heat, but with cubes you're still exposing a large area to heat.

>>	Colour Anonymous Sat Jul 27 21:03:55 2013 No.5929304 Convection

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 27 21:04:26 2013 No.5929305 >>5929300 >with cubes you're still exposing a large area to heat. Not larger though. With crushed ice there is much more surface area.

Anonymous Sat Jul 27 21:22:25 2013 No.5929343

Close... the key term you're after is
surface area to volume ratio

The are a a couple of things associated with increasing the surface to area ratio which assist in increasing the rate which the ice will melt. The obvious effect is reducing the mean distance in which heat (enthalpy) has to travel through the ice (thus increasing the effects of heat conduction and convection at the surface). Also more of the ice is exposed to the warmer air. There's also the effects of increasing the total free energy on the surface (particularly if you crush the ice to a very fine powder).

Advanced search
Text to find
Subject [?]Search by post subject. Leave empty for any.
Username [?]Search for user name. Leave empty for any user name.
Tripcode [?]Search for tripcode. Leave empty for any.
Email [?]Search by email. Leave empty for any.
Filename [?]Search by image filename. Leave empty for any.
From Date [?]Enter what date to start searching from. Format is YYYY-MM-DD
To Date [?]Enter what date to start searching until. Format is YYYY-MM-DD
Image hash
Search in	All Posts OPs Only
Deleted posts	Show all posts Show only deleted posts Only show non-deleted posts
Internal posts	Show all posts Show only internal posts Show only archived posts
Order	New posts first Old posts first
Capcode	All Posts Only by Users Only by Mods Only by Admins Only by Developers
Results	Posts Threads
Action	[ Simple ]

/sci/ - Science & Math