Evolution of crystalline misorientations in polycrystalline samples of pure ice

Abstract

There are few studies where the evolution of grain orientations and crystal misorientations of neighboring grains in a polycrystalline ice sample during grain growth are analyzed. In this work, crystal orientations and misorientations were studied in two ice cylinders obtained from bidistilled water using the techniques of plastic replicas and chemical etching pits. The cylinders were grown, one through fast freezing and the other through slow freezing. It was observed that the initial crystal orientations of the grains varied from one cylinder to the other, but this did not result in significant differences in the final crystal misorientations between neighboring grains. Such crystal misorientations could be special because they are related to a coincidence sites lattice (CSL), which could be associated with low-energy grain boundaries. Therefore, the decrease in grain boundary energy during grain growth could be influenced by these special crystal misorientations.