Turing-type 3D tubular pattern formed by water molecules: A simulation of the ice crystal growth inside a sandwich structure from the perspective of reaction-diffusion mechanism

TL;DR

This paper combines experimental and mathematical modeling approaches to understand the formation of complex 3D tubular ice crystal patterns, proposing a reaction-diffusion mechanism as the underlying process.

Contribution

It introduces a novel reaction-diffusion model for 3D ice crystal formation and validates it with experimental observations of hollow tubular structures.

Findings

Simulation reproduces geometric features of experimental ice crystals.

Reaction-diffusion model suggests Turing instability drives pattern formation.

Experimental setup successfully creates 3D tubular ice structures.

Abstract

The process of formation for an ice crystal with elaborate, symmetrical patterns from the water vapor is usually complicated and the corresponding mechanism is still not clear. Here, we experimentally constructed the 3D tubular ice crystals within a thin chamber layer filled with air in a freezer with high humidity at -27 degrees celsius. We here also propose to investigate the dynamic formation of hollow structures from the perspective of Turing's reaction-diffusion process, and a mathematical modelling of the 3D tubular structures composed of ice crystals is conducted by regarding the cooled air molecule (C-AM) as the activator and room-temperature air molecules(RT-AM) as the inhibitor. The simulation generated a hollow tube array that has similar geometric feature with the ice crystal structure of hollow columns in the experiment. This model offers a possibility to explore the Turing instability in the process of ice crystal formation.