Abstract: In order to simulate two main kinds of rime in winter, the soft rime and the hard rime, an
algorithm for rime growth simulation based on physics is proposed in this paper by analyzing the
morphology of two kinds of rime under different wind speeds and temperatures. The algorithm
calculates the length of rime by using the icing conductor model based on the principle of
thermodynamics. After that, the method of diffusion limited aggregation is introduced to our
algorithm to simulate the morphology of the soft rime with each growing point of the rime as a
condensation nuclear, and a segmentation method is for the simulation of the needle-like rime’s
morphology; Perlin noise function is used to simulate wind field by constructing stochastic noise
function and smoothing function. The experimental results show that this method can simulate the
soft rime and the hard rime in the nature realistically and efficiently.

Key words: physics approach, soft rime, hard rime, growth simulation, diffusion limited aggregation