Simulation of melting of ice around a horizontal cylinder of constant heat flux

Abstract

Melting of ice around a horizontal cylinder of constant heat flux has been studied numerically. Computations were performed for modified Stefan number Ste*=0.1, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 with modified Rayleigh number Ra* ranging from 10⁴ to 10⁷. Due to the combined effect induced by the density anomaly of water as well as the temporal and circumferential variations of the cylinder surface temperature, several different flow structures and the resulting melting patterns were predicted to be quite different from those reported for isothermal boundary conditions.

Key words:

• ice melting
• density inversion
• natural convection