Effect of cavity inclination on a temperature and concentration controlled double diffusive convection at ice plate melting

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the double diffusive convection due to the melting of an ice plate into a calcium chloride aqueous solution inside a rectangular cavity. It is mainly considered the effect of the cavity inclination θ on the melting rate and the mean melting Nusselt- and Sherwood-numbers, experimentally as well as numerically. The ice plate melts spontaneously with decreasing temperature at the melting front even if initially there does not exist a temperature difference between the ice and the liquid. The concentration- and temperature-gradients near the melting front induce double diffusive convection in the liquid, which will affect the melting rate. Experiments reveal that the mean melting mass increases monotonically with increasing cavity inclination. The numerical analysis based on the laminar assumption predicts well the melting mass in the range of θ=0–90°, however, under-predicts the melting mass in the range of θ=90–180° as compared with the experimental results.