Numerical investigation of solidification of single droplets with and without evaporation mechanism

•Evaporative heat transfer could explain the Mpemba effect in single droplets.•Radiation and convection mechanisms had less heat rates than evaporation.•Terminal velocity of droplet increased by increasing droplet radius.•In case of evaporation, droplets freeze faster by rising initial temperature.

According to some experimental observations, water droplet with high initial temperature freezes faster than a cold one. There are some explanations to this problem such as sub-cooling, evaporation and radiation. In this work, solidification process of single droplets with and without the effect of evaporation is numerically investigated for three different drop diameters and initial temperatures. It seems that evaporation itself is able to explain why hot water freezes faster than cold water.