On the convergence of the heat balance integral method (Q2504393)

The authors apply the well-known Godmann's approximate heat-balance method to the single-phase semi-infinite ice slab, whose exact solution is well-known and represents a special case of the Neumann general solution. The distance from the beginning of the slab \((x= 0)\) to the moving melt front \((x= s)\) is subdivided into \(n\) equal cells and the temperature is approximated at each node by a linear temperature profile. The further calculation is performed by the Godmann method. The authors demonstrated that the approximate solution obtained in such a way, is in good agreement with the exact solution. The study of the convergence of the approximate solution is accomplished in details.