Numerical Study of Solidification around Staggered Cylinders in a Fixed Space

ABSTRACT

Solidification phase-change problems occur in a variety of industrial applications, such as systems for thermal energy storage. In this article, an enthalpy formulation-based fixed-grid approach is employed to study the solidification around a number of staggered cylinders in a fixed volume. Pure water is adopted as the working fluid and the non-Boussinesq model is used to calculate the variation in water density to account for the natural convection during solidification. The main interest of this study focuses on the effects of cylinder number and water superheat on the growth of the ice layer and the heat transfer characteristics during solidification.