Antti Savinainen (2007) in his Phys-L post of 9 Aug 2007 titled "Wire
through ice experiment," wrote [my insert at ". . . .[insert]. . .
.":
"The work . . . . .[Valjus (2006]. . . . contains an interesting
result regarding wire through ice experiment: it seems that thermal
conductivity plays a significant role in it instead of depressing of
freezing point due to pressure. Take a look if you are interested:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It would be interesting to hear your comments."
There's an analysis of rate at which a weighted steel bar moves
downward through a block of ice in my ancient thermo text [Zemansky
(1951)], indicating that the rate is directly proportional to the
"over-all heat transfer coefficient of the composite heat conducting
path consisting of the metal and the water layer."
I used to do a demo in which two apparently identical copper wires
(about 0.010 inches in diameter) were loaded at the ends with
identical weights and placed over identical ice cubes ran a
regelation race through the ice cubes. The two set ups were viewed at
close range by several students who verified that they appeared
identical.
As I recall one of the wires took about 10 times longer to pass
through the ice than the other, to the surprise of the few students
who were still awake.
No one ever guessed the reason - before the demo one of the wires had
been soaked in hydrofluoric acid to remove its very thin insulation
layer and thereby drastically increase its over-all heat transfer
coefficient.
Valjus, M. 2006. "The Effect of Material of Wire on the Speed of
Passing Through a Block of Ice," online at
<http://tinyurl.com/36nzos>. Prize winning course work by Finnish
high-school student Mikko Valjus, supervised by Antti Savinainen.
Zemansky, M.W. 1951. "Heat and Thermodynamics." Third edition. McGraw Hill.