| Melting of ice in a box is numerically investigated in this study.; Melting in a small two-dimensional block was simulated using a commercial computational fluid dynamics package. The results were found to be dependent on the grid size, time step size and the difference between liquidus and solidus temperatures. For melting in a 2 x 2 cm block, mesh sizes varying between 40 x 40 and 120 x 120 were tested and a mesh size of 110 x 110 was chosen. Time step sizes varying between 30 to 1 s were tested and a time step size of 1 s was chosen. Differences between liquidus and solidus temperatures varying between 1 and 0.05 K were tested and a difference of 0.05 K was chosen. The simulation results were validated against published correlations and a good agreement was observed. Results showed that the contribution of natural convection to melting in a block of ice heated from the top is substantially more (about eight times) than that of conduction. Results also showed that the melting rate is a function of the size and location of the heated area. The melting rate is found to be directly proportional to the size of the heating area but not in a one to one correspondence. As the size is halved, a 25% decrease in the melting rate is observed. The boundary conditions dictate the shape of the melted area. Results showed clearly that melting tends to occur away from a subzero wall. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
