Title: The identification of transition convective regimes in liquid metals using a computational approach

Authors: Blas Melissari, Stavros A. Argyropoulos

Addresses: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, 184 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3E4, Canada. ' Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, 184 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3E4, Canada ' '

Abstract: This paper deals with the identification of transition convective regimes in liquid metals by means of the numerical simulation of the melting of solid spheres in uniform flow baths. The cases of forced convection with ||aiding|| and ||cross-flow|| natural convection are investigated. The fluids studied have Prandtl numbers between 10^-3 and 10¹. A three dimensional mathematical model has been developed using the SIMPLER algorithm to study the melting of a spherical addition initially at room temperature subjected to a uniform flow of liquid metal. The melting times are obtained as a function of the bath temperature and velocity. The model is validated against experimental results in water and liquid Aluminium, showing good agreement with the existing data.

Keywords: sphere; melting; liquid metal; experimental; modelling; numerical; natural convection; forced convection; mixed convection.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2004.003792

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2004 Vol.4 No.2, pp.69 - 77

Published online: 29 Dec 2003 *

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