Thomas Seon
Instituto Franco-Argentino de Dinámica de Fluidos para el medio ambiente (IFADyFE), CNRS, UBA, CONICET.

Ice accretion on airplanes, wires, or roadways, the formation of ice falls, ice stalactites, frozen rivers or aufeis, are a few examples of ice structures formed by the solidification of capillary flows (drop, rivulet, film). Among the many scientific questions that remain open regarding these phenomena, the effect of freezing on the contact line motion is undoubtedly one of the most important and mysterious. In this talk, we experimentally investigate this intricate coupling of advancing contact line and freezing by exploring the spreading of a water droplet on a cold substrate in various situations. This work allows us to propose the main mechanisms that explain the splashing and arrest behaviours of a contact line due to solidification.