The Prandtl number effect on melting dominated by natural convection

Journal Article · Sat Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1992 · Journal of Heat Transfer (Transactions of the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), Series C); (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1115/1.2911353· OSTI ID:7179197

Lim, J S; Bejan, A ^[1]

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1. Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States)

In a recent paper, Gobin and Benard considered the task of correlating the heat transfer data for melting in the presence of natural convection when the Pr value of the liquid phase is considerably smaller than 1. To correlate the low-Pr data is an important and timely task, especially in view of the voluminous work that has been dedicated to situations in which Pr is greater than 1. For the convection-dominated regime known also as quasi-stationary melting, Gobin and Benard correlated their low-Pr numerical data with the formula: Nu=0.29 Ra[sup 0.27]Pr[sup 0.18] They noted that this correlation does not agree with the Nu[approximately](RaPr)[sup 1/4] trend that might be expected from the single-phase natural convection scales for low Prandtl numbers. They concluded that: (1) The relevance of the group (RaPr) is not verified by their numerical results for convection-dominated melting, and (2) further work is required to determine the scaling laws that govern the transition from the initial (conduction) regime to the final (convection) regime of the process of melting by side heating. These two conclusions defined the work presented in this note. In it is reported that the correct scales of natural convection melting when the Prandtl number is small. Then construct a scaling-correct heat transfer correlation that spans the entire range of Prandtl numbers.

• OSTI ID: 7179197
• Journal Information: Journal of Heat Transfer (Transactions of the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), Series C); (United States), Journal Name: Journal of Heat Transfer (Transactions of the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), Series C); (United States) Vol. 114:3; ISSN JHTRAO; ISSN 0022-1481
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
420400* -- Engineering-- Heat Transfer & Fluid Flow
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
990200 -- Mathematics & Computers
CONVECTION
ENERGY TRANSFER
HEAT TRANSFER
INSTABILITY
MASS TRANSFER
MELTING
NATURAL CONVECTION
NUSSELT NUMBER
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
PRANDTL NUMBER
RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR INSTABILITY