Investigation of the Formation and Applications of Ice Powder

Water ice powder constitutes a potentially important manufacturing tool. Availability and cleanliness of this powder constitute its major advantage. It was shown that the ice particles could be used as an abrasive in the course of waterjet machining. Although the erosion potential of ice particles is inferior to that of the conventional abrasives, the environmental soundness of ice enables us to expend the use of the ice abrasive jets on food industry, medicine, precision machining, etc. The principal issue in the use of the ice abrasives is particles formation. Analysis of various technologies showed that an effective avenue in particle production is integration of the water freezing and ice decomposition. As the results, the desired flow rate of ice particles at the desired temperature and size distribution can be generated. The objective of the present paper is the experimental investigation of the production of ice particles. An experimental setup was constructed and used for particles fabrication at controlled conditions. The acquired information was applied for the analysis of the phenomena leading to the particles formation. As a result a hypothetical mechanism of the ice decomposition was suggested and validated. The experiments involving the decontamination of the electronic devices, semiconductors, fabric, leather, food products, polished metal, soft plastics, rusted auto parts, etc., were carried out in order to demonstrate the potential application of the ice blasting.