• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.36-44
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• 1995

Melting characteristics of unrestrained liquid ice in a rectangular vessel with heated top wall were investigated experimentally. The liquid ice, a mixture of ice particles and ethylene-glycol aqueous solution, was adopted as a testing material. During the melting process the liquid ice was drawn by buoyancy to the heated top wall of the rectangular vessel where close-contact melting occured. The melting behavior and melting rate of the liquid ice as well as local/mean heat-transfer coefficient at the heated top wall were observed and measured under a variety of conditions of heat flux and various initial concentration of the aqueous binary solution. It was found that the heat transfer of the heated top wall is remarkably promoted by the close-contact melting, and that the dendritic frozen layer at the lower interface of the liquid ice is formed. Photographic evidence demonstrated that plumes containing solute-rich liquid issued from isolated chimneys within the liquid ice layer where segregation of interstitial channel took place.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.945-956
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• 1999

This work reports a set of approximate analytical solutions describing the initial transient process of close-contact melting between a rectangular parallelepiped solid and a flat plate on which either constant temperature or constant heat flux is imposed. Not only relative motion of the solid block tangential to the heating plate, but also the density difference between the solid and liquid phase is incorporated in the model. The thin film approximation reduces the force balance between the solid weight and liquid pressure, and the energy balance at the melting front into a simultaneous ordinary differential equation system. The normalized model equations admit compactly expressed analytical solutions which include the already approved two-dimensional solutions as a subset. In particular, the normalized liquid film thickness is independent of all pertinent parameters, thereby facilitating to define the transition period of close-contact melting. A unique behavior of the solid descending velocity due to the density difference is also resolved by the present solution. A new geometric function which alone represents the three-dimensional effect is introduced, and its properties are clarified. One of the representative results is that heat transfer is at least enhanced at the expense of the increase in friction as the cross-sectional shape deviates from the square under the same contact area.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.450-458
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• 2000

This study deals with the unsteady close-contact melting of solid blocks on a flat surface subject to convective heating. Normalizing the model equations in reference to the steady solution successfully leads them to cover constant heat flux and isothermal limits at small and large extremes of the Biot number, respectively. The resulting equations admit a compactly expressed analytical solution, which includes the previous solutions as a subset. Based on the steady solution, the characteristics of close-contact melting can be categorized into constant heat flux, transition, and isothermal regimes, the boundaries of which appear to be nearly independent of the contact force. The unsteady solutions corresponding to Biot numbers in the transition regime show intermediate behaviors between those of the two limits. With a proper approximation, the present solution procedure can cope with the case of variable fluid temperature and heat transfer coefficient. Regardless of imposed conditions, the mean normalized Nusselt number during the unsteady process asymptotically approaches to a constant value as the Biot number comes close to each limit.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.67-74
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• 2000

One of the important application of a contact melting process is a latent thermal energy storage owing to its high heat flux. In some previous works, the split fins have been employed in order to enhance the melting speed. In the present work, the close contact melting was experimentally investigated using an ice as specimen for both split and non-split fins. It was shown that the contact melting by split fins increases the melting rate compared to that of non-split ones.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.2249-2260
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• 1995

An experiment of close contact melting of phase-change medium partially filled in an isothermally heated horizontal cylinder is performed which involves the volume expansion of liquid induced by the solid-liquid density difference. The solid-liquid interface motion and the free surface behavior of liquid were reported photographically. The experimental results show that the curvature of upper solid-liquid interface varied to flat as melting progresses. In addition to the varying interface shape, the melting rate increases with the lower initial height of solid and the free surface height of liquid increases linearly. The experimental results of molten mass fraction were expressed in a function of dimensionless time Fo.Ste$^{3}$4/ and agreed well with the analytical solutions.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1726-1734
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• 1998

This paper focuses on the unsteady close-contact melting phenomenon occurring between a phase change material kept at its melting temperature and a flat surface on which constant heat flux is imposed. Based on the same simplifications and framework of analysis as the case of constant surface temperature, an approximate analytical solution which depends only on the liquid-to-solid density ratio is successfully derived. In order to keep consistency with the known solution procedure, both the dimensionless wall heat flux and the Stefan number are properly redefined. The obtained solution proves to agree quite well with the published numerical data and to be capable of resolving the fundamental features of unsteady close-contact melting, especially in the presence of the solid-liquid density difference. The density ratio directly affects the film growth rate and the initial value of solid descending velocity, thereby controlling the duration of unsteady process. The effects of other parameters can be evaluated readily from the steady solution which is implied in the normalized result. Since the dimensionless surface temperature for the present boundary condition increases from zero to unity along the evolution path of the liquid film thickness, the unsteady process lasts longer than that for the case of isothermal heating.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.1710-1719
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• 1997

An approximate analytical solution for the initial transient process of close-contact melting occurring between a phase change material kept at its melting temperature and an isothermally heated flat surface is derived. The model is so developed that it can cover both rectangular and circular cross-sectional solid blocks. Normalization of simplified model equations in reference to the steady solution enables the solution to be expressed in a generalized form depending on the liquid-to-solid density ratio only. A selected result shows an excellent agreement with the previously reported numerical data, which justifies the present approach. The solution appears to be capable of describing all the fundamental characteristics of the transient process. In particular, dependence of the solid descending velocity oft the density ratio at the early stage of melting is successfully resolved. The effects of other parameters except the density ratio on the transient behaviors are efficiently represented via the steady solution implied in the normalized result. A simple approximate method for estimating the effect of convection on heat transfer across the liquid film is also proposed.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.1165-1173
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• 1997

The steady state close-contact melting phenomenon occurring between a phase change material and an isothermally heated flat plate with relative motion is investigated analytically, in which the effects of vertical convection in the liquid film and solid-liquid density difference are incorporated simultaneously. Not only the scale analysis is conducted to estimate a priori qualitative dependence of system variables on characteristic parameters, but also an analytical solution to a set of simplified model equations is obtained to specify the effects under consideration. These two results are consistent with each other, in that the vertical convection affects both the solid descending velocity and the film thickness, and that the density difference alters only the solid descending velocity. While the effect of vertical convection can be characterized conveniently by a newly introduced temperature gradient factor which asymptotically approaches the unity/zero with decreasing/increasing the Stefan number, that of density difference is represented by the liquid-to-solid density ratio. It is shown that the solid descending velocity depends linearly on the density ratio, and that the ratios of solid descending velocity, film thickness and friction coefficient to the conduction solution are proportional to 3/4, 1/4 and -1/4 powers of the temperature gradient factor, respectively. Also, established is the fact that the effect of convection can be legitimately neglected in the analysis for the range of the Stefan number less than 0.1.

• Solar Energy
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.39-48
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• 1993

This empirical paper addresses the phenomena of the contact melting of PCM in horizontal capsules of circular and rectangular cross sections with various aspect ratio. The melting-rate tends to increase as the Stefan number increases. The case of rectangular tube displays larger melting-rate than that of circular tube, and the melting-rate increases as the aspect ratio decreasws for rectangular tubes. In case of circular tube, the effect of natural convection on the melting-rate is 6.1%, 8.6% and 11.2% according to Stefan number 0.0772, 0.1287 and 0.1802 respectively.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.2595-2606
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• 1995

Buoyancy-assisted melting of an unconstrained ice in an isothermally heated horizontal enclosure was numerically analyzed in a range of wall temperatures encompassing the density inversion point. The problem as posed here involves two physically distinct domains each of which has its own scales and respective heat transfer mode. These two domains join at the junction where the liquid squeezed out of the film region flushes into the lower melt pool. Both of these domains have been treated separately in the literature by a patching technique which invokes several, otherwise unnecessary, assumptions. The present study eliminates successfully such a superfluous procedure by treating the film and lower melt pool regions as a single domain. As a result of this efficient solution procedure, the interaction of the water stream ejected at the junction and the natural convection in the melt pool could be clarified for different wall temperatures. Though limited by two-dimensionality, the present results conformed indirectly the earlier reported transition of the flow pattern, as the wall temperature was increased over the density inversion point. The transient evolution of the melting surface, the time rate of change in melt volume fraction, the local and temporal variation of the heat transfer coefficients are analyzed and presented.