During regelation of ice, in general, the heat flow through a wire has considered to control the regulation velocity, i. e., thermal control. However, the extremely small dependence of the regelation velocity on the thermal conductivity of the wire has not been clarified. We investigated the mechanisms that control the penetration of a wire through ice during regelation. Our experiments showed that the penetration velocity was inversely proportional to the diameter of a copper wire and a stainless wire under constant driving pressure. This implies that water flow controls the penetration velocity and thus clarifies the small dependency of the regelation velocity on thermal conductivity. Regelation velocity and slip of the wire were measured to determine the thickness and viscosity of the water film in front of wire. For a 0.3-mm-diameter nylon wire and a maximum driving pressure of 0. 5MPa, the estimated thickness and viscosity of the water film were 0.6μm and 0.4 Pa・s respectively.
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