Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Boundary integral equation technique with application to freezing around a buried pipe

Conference ·
OSTI ID:5599385

In this paper the use of the boundary integral equation method (BIEM) for multidimensional problems with moving phase change interface is explored. The method is shown to be suited for heat transfer problems where the field equations are linear in each region and the boundary or interface matching conditions are both highly irregular and non-linear. For moving interface problems the BIEM technique both reduces the dimensions of the problem by one, thus decreasing storage requirements, and directly solves for the unknown normal temperature gradient on each side of the interface for the determination of the instantaneous interface velocity. To illustrate the versatility of this technique the BIEM is applied to a previously unsolved problem; the melting/freezing around a pipe buried in a semi-infinite domain where the melting/freezing is initiated at the free surface and the medium is initially not at the phase change temperature. For simplicity a quasi-steady heat conduction is assumed in both the thawed and frozen zones. Solutions are presented for various values of the governing parameters.

OSTI ID:
5599385
Report Number(s):
CONF-851125-
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English