Abstract
In the past, sintering of ice spheres was studied by observing the rate of growth of a neck between two spheres of ice under the microscope. Kingery (1) concluded from his results that this growth is caused by surface diffusion, whereas Hobbs and Mason (2) deduced that it is due to a condensation-evaporation process. Kuroiwa (3) maintained that surface and volume diffusion are involved.
This paper brings an investigation of the rate of decrease in surface area of powder consisting of ice spheres with radii of about 0.5 μ. This rate was studied as a function of temperature and the surface areas were measured by the BET method. The conclusion is reached here that the decrease in surface area is due to plastic flow caused by stresses due to interfacial tension forces. The process is compatible with the assumption of an amorphous transition layer on ice (4).