Numerical study of solidification in cavity with the presence of natural convection

Abstract EN

A study of Laminar two dimensional transient solidification with time dependent natural convection in the melt is carried out.

The mathematical model for the numerical simulation is based on enthalpy porosity method.

The governing equations are descritized on a fixed grid by means of a finite volume technique. The (SIMPLE) procedure was adopted to solve mass, momentum and energy equations for pure phase change material (water) placed in a cooled rectangular cavity.

The cavity was cooled from top alone, right side wall alone, and right side wall with top and bottom walls together.

In the case of top cooling a parabolic shaped pattern of ice water interface was formed.

For the right side wall cooling the effect of density changes has led to an abnormal flow circulation which has moderately modified the heat balance of the freezing interface causing a colliding of cool and warm fluid layers.

A density variation was seen in the freezing interface region in most of the cases.

The results obtained show good agreement with experimental and numerical results of other researchers for pure convection with small discrepancies in the ice interface.

These discrepancies may be attributed to the physical modeling used for water freezing.