Melting of a free solid in a spherical enclosure: Effects of subcooling

Journal Article · Wed Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 1989 · J. Sol. Energy Eng.; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1115/1.3268284· OSTI ID:6154952

Roy, S K; Sengupta, S

The melting process within a spherical enclosure with the solid phase uniformly subcooled initially has been studied. The preliminary analysis of the problem is similar to a previous study where the degree of subcooling was zero. However, the heat transfer equation has been modified to include the effects of a temperature gradient in the solid core. As a result, a closed-form solution cannot be obtained. At every time step, the unsteady conduction equation has been solved numerically using a toroidal coordinate system, which has been suitably transformed to immobilize the moving boundary and to transform the infinite domain into a finite one. The temperature gradient at the surface is now used to solve the film equation numerically. The melt time, Nusselt number, and melt flux distributions have been obtained over a range of the parameters normally encountered in solar thermal systems.

• Research Organization: Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Univ. of Miami, Coral Gables, FL (US)
• OSTI ID: 6154952
• Journal Information: J. Sol. Energy Eng.; (United States), Journal Name: J. Sol. Energy Eng.; (United States) Vol. 111:1; ISSN JSEED
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
140100 -- Solar Energy-- Resources & Availability
140700* -- Solar Thermal Power Systems
42 ENGINEERING
420400 -- Engineering-- Heat Transfer & Fluid Flow
CALCULATION METHODS
COOLING
ENERGY TRANSFER
EQUATIONS
HEAT TRANSFER
MELTING
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
NUSSELT NUMBER
PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
POWER PLANTS
SOLAR FLUX
SOLAR POWER PLANTS
SOLAR THERMAL POWER PLANTS
SOLIDS
SUBCOOLING
TEMPERATURE GRADIENTS
THERMAL POWER PLANTS