Quantitative modeling of faceted ice crystal growth from water vapor using cellular automata (Q470613)

The authors present a numerical model of diffusion-limited faceted crystal growth for ice crystals. The model is based on cellular automata and consists of a grid approximation of the diffusion equation and boundary conditions with accumulation of mass in `pixels': as soon as the pixel accumulates enough mass, it is joined to the crystal. This method describes the free boudary motion. The boundary conditions are physical: describe the processes on the ice-vapor boundary. The 1D spherically symmetric and 2D cylindrically symmetric models are described. The results are compared to laboratory expriments.