The use of lumped capacitance in the finite-element solution of heat conduction problems with phase change (Q1083972)

In the finite-element solution of heat conduction problems with phase change, the singular behaviour of the specific heat near the phase-change point causes special problems. These problems can be overcome by lumping the thermal capacitance of the material at the nodes, to obtain a diagonal capacitance matrix. In this way the specific heat can be unambiguously calculated. The lumped-capacitance principle was combined with the explicit enthalpy method and the author's three-level enthalpy method [ibid. 28, 2079-2084 (1985; Zbl 0573.76096)]. Tests against freezing problems show that for Stefan problems both resulting methods are more accurate than previous three-level distributed capacitance methods.