BLACKSBURG, Va. (WFXR) – Researchers at Virginia Tech have mimicked a mystery of nature that allows ice to move on its own.
In Associate Professor Jonathan Boreyko’s Nature-Inspired Fluids and Interfaces Lab, Ph.D. student Jack Tapocik watched a disc-shaped chunk of ice resting on an engineered metal surface. As the ice melted, the water formed a puddle beneath. Even after many seconds of melting, the ice disk remained adhered to the engineered surface.
At first, Tapocik was tempted to conclude that nothing would happen, but he waited. After a minute, the ice shot across the metal plate he designed, gliding along as if it were propelled supernaturally.
Researchers say the results are significant because they have numerous potential applications. The methods team members developed the foundation for rapid defrosting and novel methods of energy harvesting. Their work has now been published in “ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.”
The team said they were inspired by a naturally occurring phenomenon at Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California. This dry lake bed in Death Valley National Park is host to a display of boulders the size of watermelons in long trails, left behind by their apparent movement. Because the ground was level and many of the rocks were flat, the reason for their migration remained a mystery until recently.
Harvard University Professor Richard Norris discovered the reason for this in 2014. Rather than a supernatural occurrence, it was a combination of hard ground, rain, ice, and wind.
Rainfall covered the ground with water, but the hardness of the ground prevented the water from being absorbed. The water froze when the temperature dropped, and as it later started to melt, the resulting ice rafts drifted in the breeze for the rocks to “sail” across the meltwater. Some of the rocks have been seen traveling together, which gave rise to the “racetrack” mythos.
While Norris solved a mystery of the rocks, Boreyko’s team sought something new: its members wanted to create a surface that would propel melting ice all by itself, without requiring any wind. They say they wanted to harness the science of the racing rocks.
VT to lead collaborative project to restore Appalachian red spruce forests
Initially conceived by Boreyko and former graduate student Saurabh Nath in 2019, the experiments took three years to complete, with an additional two years required for the model development.
Boreyko’s team cut asymmetric grooves into aluminum plates. This herringbone pattern, resembling a series of arrowhead-shaped channels, directs the underlying meltwater to flow in one direction.
“This directional flow of meltwater carried the ice disk along with it,” said Tapocik. “A good analogy is tubing on a river, except here, the directional channels cause the flow instead of gravity.”
Out of curiosity, team members attempted to coat the aluminum herringbones with a water-repellent spray. They expected to see a faster version of the disk getting propelled by the flow, but surprisingly, the disk stuck to the surface instead. This discovery led to the slingshot effect.
“On a waterproof surface, the excess meltwater above the channels gets squeezed out very easily,” Boreyko said. “This makes the ice disk stick to the surface’s ridges. The meltwater is still flowing along the channels, but the ice can’t ride along anymore. The fun trick here is that as the meltwater flows beyond the front edge of the ice disk, it creates a puddle. Having a flat puddle on one side of the ice creates a mismatch in surface tension, which dislodges the ice and causes it to shoot across the surface.”
Virginia Tech awarded $1.3 million for natural gas conversion research
The movement of the “racing” rocks in Death Valley is relatively slow by comparison, and they don’t shoot like slingshots. Boreyko’s surfaces are winning over the Racetrack Playa for having the fastest ice on Earth, though it’s unlikely to become an official competition.
Boreyko has already imagined one of the most high-impact applications: energy harvesting.
“If the surface structure were patterned in a circle rather than a straight line, the melting object would continually rotate,” he said. “Now imagine putting magnets on top of the ice, rather than boulders. These magnets would also rotate, which could be used for power generation.”
In addition to Boreyko and Tapocik, other research colleagues were involved in this project:
-
Saurabh Nath, a graduate student at the beginning of the project, was recently hired into a tenure-track position at the University of Pennsylvania
-
Sarah Propst, an undergraduate researcher at the beginning of the project, now a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University
-
Venkata Yashasvi Lolla, a graduate student who is now a postdoctoral research associate at UC Berkeley
John R. Jones III and the John Jones Faculty Fellowship supported this work.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFXRtv.