Turbulent melting
The laboratory in the Physics of Fluids Department of the University of Twente hosts a water tank designed for Homogeneous Isotropic Turbulence (HIT). It has a dodecahedral shape, and a volume of about 200 liters. Each of the vertices of the dodecahedron hosts a 1 kW electric motor, and all the 20 motors can be independently controlled, allowing ideally any flow in the center of the tank.
The dodecahedral tank in full configuration. The water in the tank shines from LED panels that are hosted in three of the windows. The electric motors are seen as "spikes" on the vertices of the tank, and their electronics cabinet is visible on the wall on the right of the picture. Three high-speed cameras are mounted on supports, and connected to a laptop. Above the tank, a rail is seen, that allows for the insertion and holding of large particles in the center of the tank.
I use the turbulence created by the tank to study the effect of turbulence on melting. The video hereafter shows a 12-cm ice sphere that melts under the effect of strong turbulence. The video is sped up, in real time it takes about 1 minute to melt such a sphere. For comparison, in still water it takes about 30 minutes.