Effect of volume expansion on the melting process’s thermal behavior

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical model for melting of wax in a vertical cylinder. Two different approaches are investigated, one of them does not simulate the volumetric expansion of wax during the melting process, an average value of actual solid and liquid density was used as a model density for liquid and solid phase like most previous works made, and this is called in the present work as approach-I. The second model involves the volumetric expansion of wax during melting process into account by using the actual values of liquid and solid density and this model was remarked as approach-II. The numerical model has been verified through the comparison between its predicted results and those obtained from referenced experimental work. The results of the comparison show a good satisfaction between both results in terms of prediction of liquid fraction profile. Another comparison was conducted between the two different approaches to shed the light on the effect of wax expansion during the melting process. The comparison has been carried out at different heating boundary conditions. The comparison shows a significant difference between the results obtained from the two different approaches only at low Biot number.