Effects of buoyancy-driven convection on melting within spherical containers (Q5931890)

The authors study numerically the effects of buoyancy-driven convection on constrained melting of phase change materials within spherical containers. The computations are based on an iterative finite volume numerical procedure using primitive dependent variables, whereby the authors solve the time-dependent continuity, momentum and energy equations in the spherical coordinate system. A single-domain enthalpy formulation is used for simulation of phase change phenomena. The effect of phase change on convection is accounted for using Darcy law for porous medium. The authors show that the melting will be initiated at the surface, and the solid-liquid interface will move into the sphere. Emphasis is placed on the analysis of constrained melting which means that both the solid and liquid phases have the same density. As a result, the density variation inside the liquid phase due to temperature gradients will promote buoyancy-driven convection, and the solid portion will not move inside the liquid melt. Several interesting conclusions are drawn, but we mention here only the following three of these conclusions: 1) early during the melting process, the conduction mode of heat transfer is dominant, giving rise to concentric temperature contours; 2) as the buoyancy-driven convection is strengthened due to the growth of melt zone, the melting in the top region of the sphere is much faster than in the bottom region of the sphere; 3) the Prandtl number plays an important role in the melting process. With the Rayleigh number fixed, changing the Prandtl number from 0.03 to 1.0 and 50 leads to totally different flow and melting patterns.