If you made a cavity in a suitably dense/massive hunk of material, poured in water and sealed it up so that there wasn't any air pockets or any way for the water to move, what would happen when the water reached freezing temperatures? Is the expansion of water a part of the freezing process or a result of it?
2007-12-31 05:05:35 · 6 answers · asked by SFS 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Chemistry
You'd have to have something mighty strong to keep water from expanding upon freezing. Freezing water cracks car radiators, and is the major contributor to the breakdown of rocks, even granite. Water seeps into tiny cracks in the rocks, freezes and splits the rocks apart. If you found a container for it that would not crack or split, the pressure build-up would keep the water in the liquid state.
Expansion of the water upon freezing is a part of the freezing process as the water molecules align themselves to form the 6-membered rings of ice, surrounded by 12-membered rings. The rings open up the volume and are the cause of the expansion.
2007-12-31 05:15:42 · answer #1 · answered by papastolte 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
At some temperature water will freeze. The freezing point is lowered by putting pressure such as the experiment you are describing.
Check out the following link for the water phase diagram to see the effect of pressure on freezing point.
If the container can withstand the pressure generated by volume expansion, the water wont freeze - if not the container will rupture.
2007-12-31 11:02:03 · answer #2 · answered by kapeeds 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The pressure inside the vessel would increase. Elevated pressure lowers the freezing point of water. Ice melts at about minus 20 deg C when the external pressure is 200 MPa and at about minus 8 deg C when the external pressure is 100 MPa.
When you ice skate, the pressure under the thin ice skate blade is high enough to cause the ice to melt at that point and "lubricate" the skate blade. Otherwise, on a day when the temperature was -10 deg C, the skate blades wouldn't glide smoothly over the ice.
2007-12-31 07:03:47 · answer #3 · answered by skipper 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
One of 2 things would happen. If the material around the pocket of water was relatively weak, the freezing water would expand and cause it to break or split apart. If the surrounding material was very strong, I believe that the water would not freeze due to the pressure on it.
2007-12-31 05:55:33 · answer #4 · answered by xox_bass_player_xox 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
As the water froze, the pressure would rise. There are no data about amount of water, volume of cavity, or pressure. But as the water froze, and depending on the phase diagram for water, it would freeze in a different crystal habit. You might Google to see if you can locate a phase diagram.
You can see something like this the next time you cruise to Alaska. As the ship approaches a glacier flowing down to the water's edge, you'll see that the glacier and the chunks floating in the water are sky-blue. Water in an ice cube tray freezes to ice I. The pressures on the ice in a glacier convert it to a mix of ice II and III.
2007-12-31 05:17:06 · answer #5 · answered by steve_geo1 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
As you know, water expands when it freezes. If water was compressed into a closed container, like a pipe, the pressure from its expansion would crack it. This is how potholes in the roads grow bigger. Water goes into the cracks, freezes, and then expands, pushing whatever is in it way.
2007-12-31 05:10:36 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋