Cooling Curve Simulation

Material Type

Crystallization

Progress: 0%

Time: 0.00 s

Temperature: 0 °C

Cooling Rate: 0 °C/s

Phase: Liquid

Parameters

Initial Temperature: 500 °C

Environment Temperature: 25 °C

Cooling Coefficient (k): 0.05

Composition (Component B): 50%

Supercooling Degree: 10 °C

Animation Speed: 1.0x

Show Supercooling Show Crystallization Animation Show Legend

Physical Equations

Newton's Law of Cooling: dT/dt = -k(T - T_env)

Phase Transition: dT/dt ≈ 0 (latent heat release)

Supercooling: T_crystallization = T_melting - ΔT_supercool

Phase Information

Melting Point: -- °C

Solidification Start: -- s

Solidification End: -- s

Plateau Duration: -- s

What is a Cooling Curve?

A cooling curve is a graph that shows how the temperature of a substance changes over time as it cools down. When a pure substance cools, it follows Newton's Law of Cooling until it reaches its melting/freezing point, where it forms a plateau as latent heat is released during the phase transition from liquid to solid.

Newton's Law of Cooling

Newton's Law of Cooling states that the rate of heat loss is proportional to the temperature difference between the object and its surroundings: dT/dt = -k(T - T_env), where k is the cooling coefficient that depends on surface area, heat transfer coefficient, and thermal properties. This causes exponential decay toward the environmental temperature.

Phase Transition and Plateaus

During phase transition (liquid to solid), the temperature remains nearly constant at the melting point because the released latent heat compensates for heat loss to the environment. Pure substances show a single plateau at their melting point, while mixtures exhibit multiple plateaus or a gradual cooling range as different components solidify at different temperatures.

Supercooling

Supercooling occurs when a liquid cools below its freezing point without solidifying, due to the absence of nucleation sites for crystal formation. When crystallization finally begins (often triggered by disturbance or impurities), the temperature rapidly rises back to the melting point as latent heat is released, creating a characteristic dip in the cooling curve.

Applications

Cooling curves are essential in materials science and metallurgy: determining phase diagrams of alloys, identifying purity of substances (pure materials have sharp plateaus), studying crystallization kinetics, optimizing heat treatment processes, quality control in metal casting, and understanding thermal properties in food science and cryopreservation.