Heat conservation in deforming element phase change simulation (Q801650)

In a series of previous papers a technique for finite element phase change simulation has been developed and tested. The essential feature of this technique is the use of the Galerkin method on deforming elements, with the element motion tied to the phase boundary and interpolated at interior nodes. In this paper, we demonstrate that this method conserves heat exactly, provided the calculation of the heat flux at the phase boundary is reformulated.