In this paper

the frosting at a bare copper cold plate in a natural convective environment were studied. The temperature and relative humidity of the inflowing air were 25 °C and 49%

respectively

and the copper plate was maintained at -20 °C.An AC magnetic field with the strengths of 2.0×10-3

2.5×10-3

3.0×10-3

3.5×10-3

4.0×10-3

4.5×10-3

5.0×10-3

5.5×10-3

and 6.0×10-3 T were applied to the frosting process. The results showed that thesupercooling degree of the crystals increased

but the driving force fornucleation decreased when magnetic field existed. Compared with the absence of a magnetic field

the droplet condensation time and the droplet size were reduced. Visualization studies demonstrated that the polar water molecules were arranged in the bottom plate in an orderly manner

the system’s entropy was reduced

and the driving force for crystallization was increaseddue to the additional magnetic field. The time to form a dense frost layer was reduced by 6%. In addition

with increased magnetic field strength

the amount of frost per unit area of the plate decreased under a weak AC magnetic field. A high correlation of the amount of frost deposited with the AC magnetic field strength was apparent and the fitted relationship was given in the paper.